
Class Qn :\ \ :: 

Book J^l 



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Infant-Baptism 



HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED 



Die ^abrbeil isl untoMUcl) 
— Kiibmeicr 

( d)e Irutt) is immortal ) 



W. J. McGLOTHLIN, D.D., LL. D. 

Professor of Ckurch History, 
Southern Baptist Tkeological Seminary 



Price: 50 Cents 



Sunday School Board, Southern Baptist Convention 
Nashville, Tennessee 






Copyrigkted 

by Sunday Sckool Board, Southern 

Baptist Convention. 

1916. 




MAR 17 1916 

©Gi.A428137 
1i^ I 



l^e !Sttcmor^ of tl)c faithful Witnesses 

wl)o l)avc 

livc6 anb labored anb suffered 

for ll)e 

e5labU5l)menl of spiritual religion 

in ll)e earll) 

l^is volume is reverently 

dedicated* 



PREFACE. 



The following pages have been written in the inter- 
est of spiritual religion and the evangelical faith. ^ Years 
spent in the study and teaching of church history have 
forced the conviction that infant-baptism, taken as a 
whole and throughout its history, has been the most 
serious departure from apostolic Christianity and evan- 
gelical faith that the world has to show. It has been 
the open door through which most of the errors and 
evils which have afflicted the kingdom of Christ on 
earth have poured in. The whole character of Chris- 
tian history would certainly have been very different 
had faith-baptism been preserved inviolate. Sacra- 
mental salvation, compulsion of conscience, bloody per- 
secution and union of Church and State, would have 
been impossible. Its abandonment today would abolish 
sacramental salvation with all the churches that sup- 
port this faith, would give an immeasurable impulse to 
evangelical faith and do more to unite the Christians 
of the world in the bonds of genuine spiritual fellow- 
ship and fraternity than all other possible changes. 
Varying views of the significance of infant-baptism is 
the chief cause of division among the pedobaptists 
themselves ; its practice is the chief barrier between Bap- 
tists and evangelical pedobaptists. 

The work has been written with the full consciousness 
that there is much difference between the conceptions 
of infant-baptism as held and practiced by Catholics 
and evangelical Protestants, but with a very firm con- 
viction of the evils and dangers as practiced among 
the latter. The author cherishes nothing but kindly 
feelings for his pedobaptist brethren and has sought to 
avoid in these pages any expression that would wound 
or offend reasonable people. He has written as plainly 
and as forcibly as his powers would permit, with the 
hope that pedobaptists may understand the feelings of 
the Baptists more fully and that some pedobaptists may 
be led to consider afresh their own duty in the prem- 
ises. Withal, it may lead some Baptists to understand 
more fully the security and importance of their own 
position and the seriousness of the dangers that lurk 
in infant-baptism. W. J. M. 

Louisville, Ky., Christmas, 1915. 

(4) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction by President Mullins 6 

I. Infant-Baptism in the World 9 

11. The Baptist View of Baptism i8 

III. Infant-Baptism 'and the Scriptures 28 

IV. Infant-Baptism and the Scriptures — Con- 

tinued 39 

V. Infant-Baptism Appears at End of Second 

Century 49 

VI. Infant-Baptism Slowly Gains Ground 6^ 

VII. Infant-Baptism Triumphant Through Bap- 
tismal Regeneration 75 

VIII. The Reformation—Martin Luther 86 

IX. The Reformation — Zwingli and Calvin 92 

X. Reformation and Revival in England 100 

XL The Growth of Anti-Pedobaptist Sentiment. .109 
XII. The Child and the Kingdom — The New 

Pelagianism 121 

XIII. Forces Operating for Faith-Baptism 140 

XIV. Modern Pedobaptist Scholarship 152 

XV. The Outlook for Faith-Baptism 166 

(5) 



INTRODUCTION. 



There have been, among others, two marked ten- 
dencies in the history of Christianity which have been 
productive of evil. One has been the tendency to over- 
estimate the ceremonial elements, and the other to 
underestimate them. Because of their strenuous ad- 
herence to immersion as the form prescribed in the New- 
Testament for the ordinance of baptism, Baptists have 
often been misunderstood as champions of the cere- 
monial as contrasted with the spiritual elements of the 
gospel. Nothing could be farther from the truth than 
this estimate of Baptists. They have indeed expended 
much effort in maintaining the two ordinances of the 
New Testament church. But their aim has been always 
to preserve the spirituality of the gospel, not to lose 
sight of it in the advocacy of forms and ceremonies. 
The amount of time and thought expended upon the 
latter has been no greater than the tendency to over- 
estimate them or pervert their meaning on the part of 
others. 

Baptists have, indeed, in a very peculiar sense, felt 
themselves called to maintain the purity and spirituality 
of the New Testament Christianity. Their sense of the 
call to this work has been manifest in nothing more 
clearly than in their effort to define the ceremonial ele- 
ments of Christianity in relation to the spiritual. 
Human nature is almost incorrigibly devoted to the 
outward aspects of . religion until it has become suffi- 
ciently spiritualized to penetrate to the heart and grasp 
the central realities. One needs only to recall the 
Roman Catholic perversion of a simple metaphor of 
Jesus into the doctrine of the "real presence." It would 
seem that an elementary knowledge of the principles of 
rhetoric would have prevented so palpable an error of 
interpretation. But unspiritual human nature seized 
(6) 



Introduction. 7 

upon the literal meaning and converted it into a stu- 
pendous and far-reaching perversion of the funda- 
mentals of the gospel. It became thus a striking ex- 
ample of the perils which arise out of apparently small 
deviations from a spiritual faith. 

It is in view of facts of this kind that Baptists have 
been the religious radicals among the various denomi- 
nations. They have seen with great vividness ?.nd 
clearness of outline the central spiritual elements of 
Christianity. With a like vividness and clearness they 
have perceived the significance of the outward forms. 
For them it has seemed as if the very life of Christianity 
depended upon keeping the spiritual and ceremonial 
elements in their respective places. Christian history 
certainly justifies them in their view. Forms and cere- 
monies are like ladders. On them we may climb up or 
down. If we keep them in their places as symbols, the 
soul feeds on the truth symbolized. If we convert them 
into sacraments, the soul misses the central vitality 
itself, spiritual communion with God. An outward re- 
ligious ceremony derives its chief significance from the 
context in which it is placed, from the general system 
of which it forms a part. If a ceremony is set in the 
context of a spiritual system of truths, it may. become 
an indispensable element for the furtherance of those 
truths. If it is set in the context of a sacramental sys- 
tem, it may and does become a means for obscuring 
the truth and enslaving the soul. It is this perception 
of the value of ceremonies as symbols and of their 
perils as sacraments which animates Baptists in their 
strenuous advocacy of a spiritual interpretation of the 
ordinances of Christianity. The practice of infant bap- 
tism has been one of the greatest evils which has arisen 
in the history of Christianity in the Baptist view. It is 
not forgotten that in the United States there has been 



8 Introduction. 

some modification in the estimate of the ordinance as 
practiced by some of the pedobaptist denominations. 
But in principle infant baptism remains where it has 
been from the beginning, an excrescence and ahen ele- 
ment in the body of general Protestant doctrine. For- 
tunately, these great denominations often possess other 
elements which are spiritual and inconsistent with the 
practice of infant baptism. This makes it seem to a 
Baptist incredible that infant baptism should be retained 
by them as in any sense an element of New Testament 
Christianity. 

In the light of the preceding statements it will not 
be difficult for a fair-minded pedobaptist to understand 
the motive of a Baptist in maintaining believers' and 
opposing infant baptism. It is not as the champion of 
a form or ceremony merely, it is not as a formalist at 
all, that he pleads. It is rather as the advocate of 
an intensely and radically spiritual Christianity, which 
seeks to reproduce that of the New Testament. 
J Professor McGlothlin has traced the development of 
infant baptism throughout Christian historjr with great 
clearness in the pages of this volume. (Perhaps no 
better argument can be offered against the practice than 
that afforded by the facts of its origin, and the motives 
which led to its perpetuation. Certainly no pen can 
adequately describe the evils to which it has given rise 
in those countries where the logic of infant baptism has 
had an opportunity to work itself out fully in church 
life. The fundamental explanation is to be found at 
every stage in the history. Infant baptism shifts the 
center of gravity of Christianity so completely that a 
thorough transformation of church life follows. The 
direct gives place to an indirect relation of the soul to 
God; personal faith gives place to proxy profession; 
the vital inward change or new birth gives place to a 
fictitious sacramental salvation; a regenerate gives place 
to an unregenerate church membership. This is the 
logic of infant baptism, and it is universal experience 
as well, except where other and opposing principles 
neutralize the tendency. ' E. Y. Mullins. 



CHAPTER I. 



INFANT-BAPTISM IN THE WORLD. 



Infant-baptism is one of the most tenderly 
cherished and widely practiced of all ecclesiastical 
ceremonies. Of the more than five hundred mil- 
lions of nominal Christian population of the 
world the vast majority administer this rite, while 
a comparatively small minority actually oppose 
infant-baptism and insist on the practice of faith- 
baptism only. The two great Catholic churches 
are unanimous in its support, and the great major- 
ity of Protestant churches officially favor it, 
though some of them insist on its practice less 
strenuously than the Catholics. Millions rely 
upon it for regeneration and life eternal. Some 
parents look upon the death of an unbaptized 
child with terror, feeling certain that the little 
one will be banished from the face of God for- 
ever. The baptism of royal infants is a court 
function of the highest importance, while in the 
home of the peasant it is an event of the greatest 
moment. Ecclesiastics and parents alike unite in 
demanding the baptism of the infant, to assure 
the little one's eternal welfare and gain ecclesias- 
tical control over the life at its beginning, 

Often the State has demanded the administra- 
tion of infant-baptism as sternly as the Church, 

(9) 



10 Infant-Baptism, 

and in some lands the want of baptism is still 
a serious disability in the civil life of the citizen. 
<^uring the later Middle Ages infant-baptism was 
almost triumphant, and its advocates were en- 
gaged in a bloody effort to suppress by force 
all who opposed. It was not effectively chal- 
lenged till the period of the Reformation, and 
the marked growth of faith-baptism did not be- 
gin till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries!^ 
Even now great numbers of pedobaptists regard 
anti-pedobaptists as a body of ignorant, narrow, 
perverted and troublesome fanatics who do not 
care for the religious welfare of their children 
and who are in fact semi-heathen ; others feel that 
anti-pedobaptists make overmuch trouble about a 
ceremony that is at least harmless and beautiful ; 
still others feel that anti-pedobaptists deny to 
their children a right which was granted to them 
by the Saviour himself and which has been prac- 
ticed ever since. 

And yet pedobaptist and anti-pedobaptist schol- 
ars are agreed almost absolutely as to the ascer- 
tainable facts connected with the history of infant- 
baptism. Briefly stated, these facts are as fol- 
lows : The Scriptures are silent concerning in- 
fant-baptism ; Jesus did not baptize any one (John 
4:2), and all the recorded cases of baptism are 
baptisms of believers; there is no express com- 
mand to baptize any but believers ; if infant-bap- 
tism is to be found in the Scriptures it is wholly 
by inference; there is no conclusive proof of the 
existence of the practice of infant-baptism for 



Infant-Baptism in the World. W 

more than a century and a half after the death of 
Jesus. The eariiest clear evidence of the practice 
is found in Tertullian, who lived at Carthage in 
North Africa, at the end of the second century; 
he opposed the practice; the next evidence is 
found in Cyprian, the bishop of this same city of 
Carthage, about 250. Origen, a great scholar of 
Egypt, also in North Africa, probably shows 
acquaintance with and approval of it about the 
same time; it next appears at Constantinople in 
the following century, but is opposed by the great 
preacher and bishop of that city, Gregory Nazian- 
zen; from this time on it gradually spreads over 
the Christian world. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 
in North Africa, in the fifth century, developed 
the theological argument for the practice, basing 
it in the regenerating power of baptism operating 
on the depraved nature of the infant child: on 
this basis it rapidly spread throughout the world ; 
civil governments began in the early Middle 
Ages to support the Church with force in 
the demand that all children should be bap- 
tized ; some of the sects of the later Middle Ages 
opposed infant-baptism but were hunted to death 
as heretics ; most of the Reformers preserved in- 
fant-baptism, but a strong contingency, known 
as Anabaptists, began a powerful agitation for its 
abolition. Since that time infant-baptism has 
relatively declined, while faith-baptism has had a 
great revival. These tendencies were greatly 
accelerated in the nineteenth century, and now 
show no symptoms of abatement. 



12 Infant-Baptism, 

These are the ascertainable facts concerning 
which there is Httle difference of opinion among 
scholars of all communions. The differences lie 
beyond the ascertainable facts in the realm of in- 
ference. Anti-pedobaptists maintain that these 
facts are full and final, that they constitute an 
overwhelming argument against infant-baptism 
and in favor of faith-baptism. Pedobaptists claim 
that infant-baptism can be legitimately inferred 
and satisfactorily supported by these facts. The 
two great parties separate in the realm of infer- 
ence, not of fact. 

In the view of anti-pedobaptists, infant-bap- 
tism is not only without scriptural warrant, but 
is also positively and seriously injurious when 
viewed in the whole range of its work. Pedobap- 
tists while differing widely, even fundamentally, 
among themselves as to what baptism actually 
accomplishes in or for the infant, are agreed that 
it brings some blessing. And yet they would 
scarcely claim that their children show by the 
pragmatic test of actual later life any higher moral 
standards, and purer faith, clearer hope, greater 
zeal or more earnest piety than the children of 
pious and cultured anti-pedobaptists. The sup- 
posedly beneficial effects of baptism, when tested 
by actual experience, are seen to be wholly in the 
realm of conjecture. They cannot be set down 
as facts. ^ The known facts are as stated above. 

Anti-pedobaptists believe that infant-baptism is 
not only totally devoid of warrant in Scripture 
in the way of either precept or example, but that 



Infant-Baptism in the World. 13 

it also violates the fundamental conception of re- 
ligion set forth in the New Testament ; and intro- 
duces a second baptism, which works to abolish 
faith-baptism which is commanded in the Scrip- 
tures. In its essential nature, it nullifies the fun- 
damental Christian principles of personal choice 
and conscious religious experience; it violates in 
the cradle of helpless infancy the sacred doctrine 
of religious freedom. ; historically and in practice 
it has obscured the great fact of spiritual regener- 
ation through faith in Jesus Christ, it has intro- 
duced the unregenerate Vv^orld into the Church, 
has blurred and confused the distinction between 
Christian and non-Christian; has led millions to 
depend on its magical effects for a salvation that 
is promised to vital faith in Christ only; has 
served as the basis for the union of Church and 
State, and has been the indispensable condition 
of religious coercion and persecution through the 
centuries. Without the forcible administration of 
baptism on unconscious or unwilling individuals 
persecution is logically impossible, since the very 
essence of faith-baptism is the personal and free 
choice of each individual on all religious matters. 
Upon infant-baptism, therefore, lies first respon- 
sibility for all the blood that has been poured out 
by the Church in the effort to enforce ecclesias- 
tical uniformity. No body of Christian people 
who have consistently practiced faith-baptism 
have been guilty of persecution. Further than 
this, a moment's consideration will make it per- 
fectly clear to my tJx)ughtful man that those who 



14 Infant-Baptism, 

practice faith-baptism could not become perse- 
cutors, for the simple reason that they have 
adopted the voluntary principle in religion. 

No indictment of equal gravity can be brought 
against any other ceremony practiced by any con- 
siderable part of the Christian world today. Not 
only the two great Catholic churches, but also 
every other pedobaptist church, with one or two 
minor exceptions, carries the blood of martyrs 
on its skirts as a result of the effort to coerce men 
into uniformity through infant-baptism. 

In view of these undeniable facts it seems to 
anti-pedobaptists passing strange that the evan- 
gelical Protestant churches who now abhor per- 
secution, and insist on religious freedom and a 
personal religious experience as a condition of 
church membership, should still persist in a prac- 
tice whose history is so dark and whose effects 
even now are so dangerous, a practice which is 
confessedly without clear Scripture warrant, 
which is Jewish and pagan in its original and 
fundamental conception, which has been con- 
demned by its practical effects in Christian his- 
tory, which tends inevitably to nullify the spir- 
itual nature of Christianity itself, and is today 
the rock upon which Catholicism, both Roman 
and Greek, stands. 

The practice persists chiefly because of the 
power of ecclesiastical tradition. It arose out 
of belief in the magical eifects of baptism, and 
is defended by arguments that diifer according 
to the fundamental standpoints of the churches 



Infant-Baptism in the World. 15 

that maintain it. These arguments of the vari- 
ous pedobaptist churches often invaHdate and 
negative each other, but without any effect on 
their respective proponents. The Calvinist repu- 
diates the grounds on which the CathoHc bap- 
tizes infants, and vice versa. The effort to make 
a vaHd scriptural argument by adducing cases of 
infant-baptism or discovering something that 
could be construed into a command to baptize 
infants is an afterthought. No such efforts were 
made in the early history of the practice. It was 
not till Protestants arose and adopted the theory 
of the supreme authority of Scripture that such 
arguments were attempted. In modern times 
infant-baptism, whatever arguments are advanced 
in its support in controversy with the advocates 
of faith-baptism, really rests on one of the three 
following basal principles: The Catholics (Ro- 
man and Greek) and many Lutherans and Epis- 
copalians base it on the magical regenerating 
power of the ceremony; Presbyterians, Congre- 
gationalists and some others on the relation of 
the child to believing parents ; Methodists and 
some others make it a simple ceremony of dedica- 
tion by which the child is publicly and solemnly 
given to God. In the first instance the child is 
held to be lost without baptism and is believed 
to be saved in it and by it ; in the second instance 
the child is not supposed to be saved by it, but 
since it is born of believing parents (only the 
children of believing parents are baptized), it has 
a right to baptism as the ceremony which intro- 



16 Infant-Baptism, 

duces it into the covenant of grace, as circum- 
cision did in the Jewish economy. Without this 
infant-baptism they believe the child would some- 
how be at a serious disadvantage. In the third 
case baptism is not for the direct benefit of the 
child at all, but for the sake of the parents, who 
are thus reminded of their solemn duty to bring 
up the child in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord. Doubtless most parents, except in the 
Catholic churches, are moved by parental senti- 
ment without any clear thought as to the purpose 
or significance of baptism. They accept it as an 
ancient and pretty social and religious custom 
whose omission would be nothing short of a social 
disgrace. 

All the pedobaptist churches baptize adults also, 
but on totally different grounds. They are agreed 
that an adult must repent and believe, else baptism 
is an idle and useless ceremony. They thus have 
two baptisms; one is for infants; it is without 
faith and is dependent for its efficacy and signifi- 
cance either on the magical working of baptism 
or on the natural family relation of the infant to 
believing parents, or on the subsequent religious 
instruction given by parents. The other is for 
adults, and is based upon preceding faith. 

The justification of infant-baptism is extremely 
difficult and embarrassing to all except those who 
believe in its regenerating power. It grew up 
in the Catholic system and has always been very 
embarrassing to evangelical pedobaptists. Clear 
thinkers, like Zwingli and Calvin, are utterly con- 



Infant-Baptism in the World. 17 

fused when they try to find a place for it in their 
systems. Nothing but the power of ecclesiastical 
tradition could keep evangelical pedobaptists 
practicing a custom which is the contradiction of 
their evangelical principles. In view of these 
facts it is not strange that the practice is on the 
decline among evangelical Christians. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE BAPTIST VIEW OF BAPTISM. 



Baptists hold a perfectly simple and consistent 
view of baptism. They have but one baptism for 
all, based upon the spiritual condition of the re- 
cipient. They do not baptize one class for one 
reason and another for another. They have *'one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism." What they insist 
on with unwavering fidelity is that repentance 
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
must precede baptism in every instance. It is not 
a question of infants or adults, not a question of 
\^age in any sense, but of faith. If infants could 
exercise faith Baptists would baptize every one 
that gave satisfactory evidence of the possession 
of that faith and expressed a desire for baptism. 
When there is a request for baptism and satis- 
factory evidence of the existence of faith is found, 
Baptists baptize, whether the candidate is eight, 
or twelve, or twenty, or seventy. Age, it is re- 
peated, has no place in the discussion. Ours is 
not an adult- as contrasted with a child-baptism, 
but a faith-baptism as contrasted with a non-faith- 
baptism. Baptists believe that all persons who 
die without attaining moral responsibility, what- 
ever be the cause, are saved by the mercy and 
grace of God in Christ Jesus. But this salvation 

(18) 



The Baptist View of Baptism, 19 

is without the exercise of faith and so without the 
duty of baptism. Baptists would no more baptize , 
an idiot than an infant, because neither is cap- 
able of exercising faith. They believe baptism 
to be absolutely inseparable from the exercise of 
personal saving faith. 

The reasons which actuate the Baptists in these 
views and practices are many and various. The 
scriptural argument will be reviewed at some 
length in the next two chapters. In this the more 
general phases of the argument will be stated. 

I. Baptists believe that the essential nature 
of the Christian religion makes any other than 
the view set forth above untenable and any other 
practice than theirs ultimately if not immediately 
hurtful. Salvation is, as they believe, personal. 
There are no proxies, one cannot stand for an- 
other in spiritual things. Every sour must for 
itself enter into right relations with God through 
Jesus Christ. The soul must be free, in full pos- 
session of its faculties, its actions voluntary. In-^ 
fant-baptism is a process of spiritual kidnaping. It 
not only has no blessings for the child, but vio- 
lates the fundamental religious rights of the in- 
dividual, deciding for him when he is helpless 
what he has a God-given right and duty to decide 
for himself. It is not only futile, but denies to 
its victim the highest functions of a spiritual be- 
ing, the right of self-direction in the supreme con- 
cerns of the soul. As well baptize an adult in\ 
the unconsciousness of sleep or anesthesia or de-/ 
lirium as an infant in its moral and religious un-j 



20 Infant-Baptism. 

consciousness. Infant-baptism is the first and 
fundamental violation of religious freedom and 
draws all other violations in its train. 

Baptists do not believe that religion in its es- 
sence is an affair of the family or the nation or 
of racial descent. They recognize that the pagan 
religions were and are tribal, national, or racial. 
A pagan is born into a religion as he is born into 
citizenship in a given state. In some measure 
the Jewish religion stood on the same basis. The 
Jewish child was born into the Jewish religion, 
and he was circumcised in acknowledgment and 
confirmation of that fact. His was a national re- 
ligion. His circumcision and religious duties 
were based on his birth, his racial and physical 
origin. It neither marked nor wrought any 
change in his spiritual condition; in fact, it had 
no relation to his personal character or spiritual 
condition as an individual. To omit it was to 
renounce loyalty to Israel; it involved expulsion 
from the nation and so from its spiritual as well 
as its other advantages. 

But in the fullness of the times this ideal had 
served its purposes in the progress of the king- 
dom of God, and the day arrived for the bless- 
ings of grace to be sent broadcast throughout the 
earth. In order to accomplish this high purpose 
change was necessary. John the Baptist was 
raised up as a ^'teacher sent from God" to insti- 
tute this change. He broke away from the racial 
conception of religion altogether, and made the 
personal experience of repentance and faith in 



The Baptist View of Baptism. 21 

every individual of whatever race or family the 
basis of religion. The ax was laid at the root 
of every tree (Jewish as well as Gentile), and 
every tree (Jewish as well as Gentile) that brings 
not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into 
the fire. The basis of religion in the mouth of 
John is personal. In order to enter the kingdom 
of God the Jew as well as the Gentile must re- 
pent and believe and so the Jew as well as the 
Gentile must be baptized. Circumcision was foFj 
the Jewish male child, baptism was for the re-\ 
pentant and believing hitman being (Jew and*^ 
Gentile alike). The two ceremonies stood on 
totally different bases, meant totally different 
things, and so had no relation of kinship to each 
other. Jews who had been circumcised in infancy 
were baptized notwithstanding their circumcision. 
Circumcision rested upon the rights and duties 
of Jewish citizenship, a racial basis, and so was 
to be administered to every male Jewish child; 
baptism rests upon a personal, spiritual basis (re- 
pentance and faith) and so is to be administered 
to every individual (male or female) who pos- 
sesses the necessary spiritual qualifications, ir- 
respective of sex, race, or family. Circumcision 
by its nature and purpose was limited to Jewish 
male children, baptism is limited by its nature to 
believers. Genuine baptism before faith is as ^X 
impossible as circumcision before birth. ^ 

Baptists do not fail to value Christian parent- 
age or emphasize parental obligation to bring up 
children in the nurture and admonition of the 



f' 



22 Infant-Baptism. 

Lord. But they cannot believe that the child in- 
herits the Christianity of its parents or loses any 
spiritual blessings by the omission of a ceremony 
^^ that is supposed to have taken the place of the 
old Jewish circumcision. To Baptists the Chris- 
tian religion is by its very nature personal and 
spiritual. In their opinion there can be no reli- 
gion by proxy or family or ceremony. A child 
can no more inherit its parents' faith than their 
view of the solar system. Salvation lies in the 
realm of personal experience where there are no 
proxies before birth or after birth, and as every 
individual must consciously believe for himself 
so he must consciously choose baptism for him- 
self. 

2. Baptists reject infant-baptism because they 
believe our religion is spirituaL The high and 
holy transactions between the soul and God take 
place in the clear light of consciousness. They 
do not believe that the ceremony of baptism can 
work in a magical way to produce in the soul, 
while it is morally unconscious, such tremendous 
effects as regeneration and salvation. To Bap- 
tists the practice of baptizing babies for the re- 
moval of sin of which they are not conscious is 
blasphemous mockery, working immeasurable 
wrong to the soul by lulling it into a false and 
dangerous security when it comes to conscious 
responsibility. The view that baptism regenerates 
is pagan in its origin and came directly from 
paganism into Christianity. It was, except among 
Pelagians, the only view of infant-baptism held 



The Baptist View of Baptism. 23 

by anybody down to the Reformation, and is still 
the view and teaching of the vast majority of 
those who practice it. It is, in the judgment of 
Baptists, the deadliest heresy that ever crept out ^j^ 
of the pagan religions of the Roman empire into 
the faith of the Christian Church. If evangelical 
Protestants sometimes wonder at the tenacity of 
the Baptists in their opposition to infant-baptism 
they can easily find the explanation in the history 
and present practice of the ceremony. It is a con- 
stant cause of wonder to Baptists that evangel- 
ical Protestants so tenaciously perpetuate a prac- 
tice for which they can find no certain Scripture 
warrant, a practice which is the very cornerstone 
of the Catholic churches, which is relied on by 
hundreds of millions of souls in our day for a 
salvation which no evangelical Christian believes 
it can give them and which had such a sinister 
and bloody history in the Middle Ages. Bap- 
tists cannot look upon this practice without a 
shudder. They believe our religion is spiritual 
and therefore they reject infant-baptism, which 
they believe has been the chief hindrance to evan- 
gelical Christianity in its w^hole history. It is in 
the interest of spiritual freedom and reality that 
they protest. It is not from love of controversy 
or isolation, but from a profound conviction that 
the most precious treasures are at stake. 

3. Baptists do not believe that baptism, which 
has a distinct and important place in the kingdom ^ 
of God, should be emptied of its real meaning by 
reducing it to a ceremony of infant dedication. 



24 Infant-Baptism, 

They believe that all parents should in their hearts 
dedicate their children to God and do their ut- 
most to rear them in the fear of the Lord. Nor 
do they have any objection to a public dedica- 
tion to God, if parents so desire. What they ob- 
ject to is the prostitution of baptism to this use. 
Baptism was instituted as a ceremony of self- 
dedication to Jesus Christ and a public, dramatic 
proclamation of personal repentance and faith 
in him. It is needed for this purpose at the be- 
ginning of the Christian life, and it is a serious 
perversion of the ordinance and a serious loss to 
the Christian life to use it for the public dedica- 
tion of infants, thereby preventing its use for the 
purpose for which the Founder instituted it. 
Pedobaptists have no ceremony of self-dedication 
at the beginning of the real Christian life — a great 
loss. 

4. Baptists reject infant-baptism because they 
believe it to be entirely without warrant in Scrip- 
ture. Confessedly there is no explicit command 
to baptize infants or any others than believers. 
Nor is there any example of infant-baptism. It 
is not specifically forbidden in Scripture, it is true, 
but Baptists believe it to be excluded by the terms 
of the Great Commission under which Christian 
work is done. They believe it is not forbidden 
because the practice had not arisen, and did not, 
therefore, come into the purview of the Chris- 
tians of the first century. Complete silence con- 
cerning a custom which dififers so radically from 
faith-baptism, which was commanded, is a power- 



The Baptist View of Baptism. 25 

ful presupposition against the existence of the 
practice. To argue that a practice is permitted 
and approved when it is not forbidden would 
open the door to all the other Catholic innova- 
tions of the centuries, such as the mass, venera- 
tion of saints, relics and images, transubstantia- 
tion and the rest, none of which are forbidden in 
Scripture. This argument proves too much, and 
therefore proves nothing. The fact that a prac- >y^|;- 
tice is not forbidden in Scripture is not a proof' — 
that it is approved. 

5. In the next place, Baptists reject infant- 
baptism because they can trace its rise in Chris- 
tian history subsequent to the Apostolic Age. 
They know that it comes out of the years when 
the fundamentals of Christianity were being ob- 
scured and obliterated by the absorption into the 
Church of pre-Christian Jewish and pagan ideas 
and practices. First came baptismal remission ^^{^^ 
and regeneration, the saving significance of the 
ordinance, and out of this corruption naturally 
arose the practice of baptizing the sick and the 
dying, who were believed to be lost if they died 
unbaptized. Very naturally the supposed benefits 
of baptism were extended to sick infants and then 
gradually to all infants. 

It originated in those years in which the old 
paganism and Christianity were being amalga- 
mated into what is called the Catholic church, 
and the history of the period does not recommend 
the practice. It rose in the making of the Cath- 
olic system and it fits there perfectly; but it is 



26 Infant-Baptism. 

an anomaly in any evangelical system built on 
justification by faith. It is a grief to Baptists 
that their Protestant brethren have retained this 
unevangelical Catholic practice which is so utterly 
alien to their own faith, which drives them to 
such strange expedients in its defense, which con- 
stantly jeopardizes their own evangelical position 
and which has drawn in its train through the 
centuries such a mass of evils. 

6. Baptists reject infant-baptism because of its 
baleful effects in Christian history. Hardly any 
other departure from Scripture teaching has been 
so prolific of evil. It was the open door through 
which the unregenerate world flooded into the 
Church and finally overwhelmed it. The w^hole 
of society poured into the Church through this 
door, all distinction between the Church and 
the world disappeared, the ideal of a pure church 
vanished, church discipline ceased ; henceforth the 
world and the Church were identical. Without 
infant-baptism there never would have been a 
Catholic church and the whole history of the 
Christian world would have been different. Bap- 
tists believe that these indisputable historical ef- 
fects constitute a sound reason for rejecting the 
practice. 

7. Finally, Baptists claim that the very ritual 
of baptism used by many of the pedobaptist 
churches themselves proves that faith was re- 
quired in the earliest times. The oldest of these 
rituals are very ancient and they presuppose faith. 
The priest is still required to ask the child if it 



The Baptist Vieio of Baptism. 27 

repents, believes, renounces the world, etc. The 
sponsors answer for the child, in the name of the 
child. It is all absurd, ridiculous, dishonest. It 
proves absolutely that the early churches required 
faith. 

Coupled with this was the institution of the 
catechumenate in which candidates were carefully 
trained before they received baptism. This was 
not applied to heathen and their children only, 
but also to the children of Christian parents. 

All these considerations lead Baptists not only 
to regard infant-baptism as without warrant, but 
also to feel that it is positively wrong. It is with 
profound regret that they see their evangelical 
pedobaptist brethren perpetuating a practice 
which they inherited from Catholicism, which has 
been so hurtful in the past and which is so dan- 
gerous to spiritual, evangelical Christianity for 
the future. 



CHAPTER III. 



INFANT-BAPTISM AND THE SCRIP- 
TURES. 



Baptism is a Christian ordinance. It is not 
mentioned in the Old Testament, but first appears 
in the ministry of John the Baptist. It is intro- 
duced without any explanation of its origin or 
significance. John mentions the fact that he was 
sent to baptize by God the Father himself (John 
I • 33j 31)- His was a "baptism of repentance/' 
that is, it was based upon repentance which it 
presupposed (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; Acts 13: 
24). This fact excludes a non-faith infant-bap- 
tism in his practice, and so far as known no one 
claims that John baptized infants. He preached 
powerfully and pungently and baptized those who 
repented. 

Jesus began his public ministry by asking bap- 
tism at the hands of John, thus aligning himself 
with John's movement. When John hesitated 
and demurred, he insisted, declaring that ''thus 
it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt. 
3 : 15). After his baptism and temptation he also 
began preaching and gathering disciples around 
himself. His message at the beginning was iden- 
tical with that of John; he, too, proclaimed the 
demand, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven 

(28) 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures, 29 

is at hand." Jesus, through his baptism, as well 
as through his early messages and first followers, 
allied himself directly with John and his move- 
ment. His work was a continuation of that of 
John, his earliest disciples had been disciples of 
John (John i: 3Sff; 3: 26). They continued 
to baptize after they transferred their allegiance 
to Jesus, and there is no evidence of any change 
of the subject of baptism from a penitent believer 
to an unconscious infant either then or later (John 
3: 22f). 

Nothing more is said in the gospel narrative 
about baptisms by Jesus or his disciples after the 
early weeks of his ministry. Because of this silence 
in the record some commentators have thought 
that he suspended baptisms altogether after a 
while to give himself wholly to the spiritual work 
of the kingdom. This does not seem probable, 
however, since he later commends the baptism of 
John (Matt. 21 : 25; Mark 11 : 30; Luke 20: 4; 
7 : 28f ), and uses the figure of baptism in the de- 
scription of his approaching sufferings (Matt. 20: 
22f ; Mark 10 : 38f ) . He would hardly have done 
this unless the practice of baptism had been con- 
tinued throughout his ministry so as to be famil- 
iar to his hearers. The probability is that there 
were very few conversions after the period of 
hostility began, and so naturally few baptisms. 
There is, however, it must be admitted, no com- 
mand to baptize until after his resurrection, nor 
any example of his baptizing, except at the be- 
ginning of his ministry. 



30 Infant-Baptism, 

Did he baptize little children in the middle of 
that ministry ? It is not probable that he did. He 
loved little children, used them in illustrating pro- 
found and important truths (Mark 9: 36f ; Luke 
9: 47; Matt 18: 2, 4f; Mark 10: 15; Luke 18: 
17; 7: 32) ; he insisted on their having free ac- 
cess to him and his teaching, declaring that the 
kingdom with all its riches belonged to them as 
well as to others (Matt. 19: 14; Mark 10: 14) ; 
he took them in his arms and blessed them. But 
did he baptize them? "Jesus himself baptized 
not" (John 4:2). If these children were bap- 
tized it must have been done by his disciples. 
But they sought to hinder them from coming to 
him and the spirit which they manifested is not 
such as to lead us to believe that they were accus- 
tomed to baptize children or expected him to do 
so on this occasion. If they had been instructed 
by Jesus to baptize children it is inconceivable 
that they would have behaved so roughly as to 
call forth a sharp rebuke from the Master. If 
Jesus himself baptized them he changed his earlier 
custom of baptizing only through his disciples, 
and changed also from the earlier practice of both 
John and himself, for both had required repent- 
ance as a prerequisite to baptism. If such radical 
changes had been made at this time it seems cer- 
tain that something would have been said in the 
narrative to indicate that fact, whereas there is 
absolute silence concerning baptism in connection 
with the blessing of the little children who were 
brought to him. For these reasons Baptists main- 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures, 31 

tain that Jesus not only baptized no infants him- 
self, but that none were baptized during his life- 
time. 

The Great Commission (Matt. 28: i6ff), given 
after his death and resurrection as his final in- 
structions and his program for his disciples in 
the prosecution of the work of the kingdom, not 
only does not command the administration of 
baptism to infants but by its terms clearly ex- 
cludes the practice. ''Go . . . make disciples 
baptizing them . . . teaching 
them.''' It is a missionary program. A con- 
scious world is to be brought into the position 
of discipleship to Jesus Christ and then baptized 
and taught all the fullness of the gospel. It has 
no application to infants. In the view of Christ 
the whole world is and will remain a mission field. 
He has no program but a mission program. 
There is no plan of work except that of making 
disciples by the preaching of the gospel, then 
baptizing and teaching them. If the whole world 
were converted today the work of evangelizing 
would need to be taken up again tomorrow. In 
the very nature of the case it is a continuous task. 
The fact that one's parents are Christians has no 
bearing on one's own life except as it gives 
greater opportunities to know saving truth. The 
Commission affords no warrant for the baptism 
of any but disciples. 

But what was the practice of the apostles ? Did 
they baptize infants or give instructions to begin 
that practice? So far as known no respectable 



32 Infant-Baptism. 

pedobaptist scholar claims that there are any 
apostolic instructions on the subject of infant- 
baptism. Nor do they claim that there are any 
certain cases of its administration in apostolic 
history. Here as earlier in the gospel narrative 
the most that can be claimed is a few passages 
from which it is thought that infant-baptism can 
be legitimately inferred. Let us examine these. 

There are certain passages which refer to the 
baptism of ''households'' and it is claimed that 
infant-baptism can be legitimately inferred from 
these incidents. The argument is about as fol- 
^ lows : Households often have infants in them, 
therefore there were infants in these households ; 
these households were baptized, therefore the in- 
fants were baptized ; the infants were baptized in 
these cases, therefore it was the custom of the 
apostles to baptize infants. Such is the argument. 
^^ Its weakness as an argument is so obvious that 
V^ its logical inconclusiveness need not be pointed 
out. Let us rather study the cases under consid- 
eration. They are five : Cornelius at Csesarea, 
Lydia and the jailer at Philippi, Stephanas and 
Crispus at Corinth. The first case occurred in 
the experience of Peter, the other four in that 
of Paul. 

The case of the Roman centurion Cornelius is 
related in Acts lo and ii. Is there any evidence 
here that Peter has broken away from the prac- 
tice of his Master and his own earlier practice 
and begun the baptizing of infants ? He is mak- 
ing one great innovation in that he is preaching 



/ 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 33 

to Gentiles for the first time; is he making an- 
other by baptizing infants? The supposition is 
in itself improbable. But we are not left to sur- 
mise in this case. In Acts 10: 2, Cornelius is 
' said to have been "a devout man, and one that 
feared God vv ith all his house ;" in 10 : 44 it is 
said that ''the Holy Spirit fell on all them that 
heard the word ;'' the Jewish Christians present 
"were amazed'' "because that on the Gentiles also 
was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. For 
they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify 
God'' (10: 45f). It is manifest that there were 
no infants in this household. They were all de- 
vout before the visit of Peter ; they all heard the '-' 
word; the Spirit fell on all of them and they all 
spake with tongues. These statemicnts could not 
be true of infants. 

So far, then, as the evidence reveals his prac- 
tice, Peter continued baptizing believers and be- 
lievers only, as his Master had done. But what 
of Paul ? He never knew Jesus personally. Did 
he depart from the practice and the command of 
Jesus his Lord as he carried the gospel ''far 1 
hence to the Gentiles"? It is not likely, to say ' 
the least. But let us examine the recorded cases. 
The first is that of Lydia, the seller of purple at 
Philippi. She was converted, and she and her 
household were baptized (Acts 16: I4f). It is 
assumed by pedobaptists, apparently with great 
confidence, that there w^ere infants in this house- 
hold, and that Paul, therefore, baptized infants. 
But several things are to be noted in connection 



34 Infant-Baptism, 

with the case. In the first place, there is no 
mention of infants or even of a husband. The 
claim that there were children of any age is a 
pure assumption, for the word "household'' may 
mean servants or employees as in the case of 
''Caesar's household" (Phil. 4: 22), where it can 
mean only imperial employees. Certainly none 
of the imperial children, Nero's children, were 
members of the church of Rome at that time. 
Lydia was a merchant woman far from her 
Asiatic home at Thyatira, engaged in business, a 
consideration which makes it intrinsically improb- 
able that she had infant children. Almost cer- 
tainly ''household" here means employees. Be- 
ing a pious woman, she had gathered about her 
a company of like-minded workers who would be 
prepared to receive the gospel. Doubtless her 
own piety had further prepared them, so that 
Paul found in them a ripe field which quickly 
yielded to the gospel story. The Lord opened 
their hearts to receive the gospel as he did that 
of their mistress, and so Paul baptized them on 
precisely the same conditions on which he bap- 
tized their employer. This is certainly the most 
reasonable and intrinsically probable view to take 
of this incident. It may be that the nucleus of 
the church of Philippi was in the sales-rooms 
I of Lydia. Certainly if the presence of in- 
\ fants in this household cannot be emphatically 
1 denied, neither can it be categorically asserted. 
The next case to claim attention is that of the 
jailer at Philippi who was baptized with his 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 35 

household, ''all his" (Acts 16: 33). In this in- 
stance the household certainly had no infants, 
for when the alarmed and repentant jailer fell 
trembling at the feet of the missionaries and asked 
what he must do to be saved, Paul replied, ''Be- ,/ 
lieve on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, 
thou and thy house" (verse 31). These instruc- 
tions mean either that the "house" is to be saved 
on the same terms as the jailer, that is, by faith 
in Jesus Christ, or that the jailer's faith will serve 
for the salvation of the entire household. Clearly 
the ''house" is expected to believe like the head 
of the house, and only such as believed would be 
saved. Vicarious faith is unknown to the Scrip- 
tures. In complete harmony with this view "they 
spake the word of the Lord unto him, with all 
that were in his house," and when they accepted 
the good news, they w^ere baptized, "he and all 
his, immediately." He then "brought them up 
into his house, and set food before them, and re- 
joiced greatly, with all his house, having be- 
lieved in God" (verse 34). All those in this 
household were expected to believe and be saved 
like the jailer, the word was preached to them as 
to him, they were baptized like him when they 
believed, they rejoiced like him after their bap- 
tism. Clearly there were no infants in this house- 
hold. 

The other two cases of household baptisms 
took place at Corinth. They are the households 
of Stephanas and Crispus. The former "house" 
contributed the "first fruits," that is, the first 



36 Infant-Baptism. 

converts, not only of the city of Corinth, but also 
of the whole district of Achaia (i Cor. i6: 15). 
Luke, in Acts, tells us nothing of the circum- 
stances of their conversion, but Paul says (i Cor. 
1 : 16) that he himself baptized this household 
among the few baptisms which he administered 
at Corinth. Stephanas was later an active and 
useful Christian man as he with two other breth- 
ren crossed the ^gean sea to Ephesus to minister 
to Paul during his long mission in that great 
city. As in the other cases of household bap- 
tisms, nothing is said of any infants in this case; 
and there is a strong presumption against their 
presence, because when Paul wrote from Ephesus 
to this church three or four years later, he says 
that the household of Stephanas ''have set them- 
selves to minister unto the saints'' (i Cor. 16: 
15). This could hardly be said if part of the 
family were infants at the time of their baptism 
shortly before. 

Crispus was a very prominent Jew of Corinth, 
Y the ruler of the synagogue on Paul's arrival. He, 
too, was baptized by Paul himself, doubtless with 
all his house, though that is not stated. In his 
case, however, it is distinctly stated that he ''be- 
lieved in the Lord with all his house," a state- 
ment which absolutely excludes the presence of 
infants in his household. The effect of the con- 
version of this prominent family was very great, 
for "many of the Corinthians hearing believed, 
and were baptized" (Acts 18: 8). 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 37 

These are the cases of household baptism upon 
which our pedobaptist brethren are accustomed 
to lay so much stress as proofs of the practice of 
infant-baptism by the apostles. But it has been 
fairly shown that in every instance the presump- ^' 
tion is clearly against rather than in favor of 
the presence in the households of infants or chil- 
dren too young to believe. Even in a Christian 
land like ours every Baptist preacher with much 
experience has been called on to baptize whole 
households, w^ho together had accepted the Lord 
Jesus. In the mission work of the first century 
when there had been such wide-spread provi- 
dential preparation for the preaching of the gos- 
pel whole families must have accepted the gospel 
together very frequently. 

^Moreover, if these passages prove the practice 
of infant-baptism, they would prove entirely too ^^ 
much for evangelical pedobaptists ; for it is as- 
sumed in the text that those baptized Vv^ere saved. 
Now, if there were infants and they were saved, 
it was accomplished through the faith of their 
parents, that is, entirely by proxy, or by the mag- 
ical effects of baptism. And, still further, these 
children were not born of parents w^ho were be- 
lievers when the children were born, so that they 
could not have inherited the blessings which are 
by some pedobaptists supposed to accrue to the 
children of Christian parents in a Christian fam- j 
ily. These cases could, therefore, afford no 
ground for the contention that baptism succeeds 
circumcision and must be limited to the children 



38 Infant-Baptism. 

of Christian parents. None of the reasons for 
baptizing infants which are usually advanced in 
modern times could possibly have been operative 
in these instances of household baptism, even if 
it were granted that infants were present and 
baptized. Our modern evangelical pedobaptist 
overthrows his own arguments by citing these 
instances. 

Christian households are mentioned in a few 
other passages by Paul (Rom. i6: lo, ii; Phil. 
4: 22; 2 Tim. i: 15-18; 4: 19). In every in- 
stance there is a strong presumption against the 
presence of infants in these households and in 
one case, that of Narcissus (Rom. 16: 11), the 
believing members of the house are distinguished 
from the unbelieving. The conclusion seems in- 
evitable that the so-called household baptisms 
give no support to the practice of infant-baptism. 



CHAPTER IV. 



INFANT-BAPTISM AND THE SCRIP- 
TURIES, CONTINUED. 



Two other passages are frequently cited in 
support of the practice of infant-baptism. They 
are Acts 2 : 39 and i Cor. 10 : 2. The first pas- 
sage is in the midst of Peter's sermon on the 
day of Pentecost. When his trenchant discourse 
led his hearers to cry out, ''Brethren, what shall 
we do?'' he responded, ''Repent ye, and be bap- 
tized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ unto the remission of your sins ; and ye 
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit," just 
as the little Christian company had done. "For 
to you is the promise, and to your children, and 
to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord 
our God shall call unto him." It is claimed that 
the word "children" in this passage warrants the 
baptism of infants, for the promise is to the chil- 
dren as to those who heard and understood Pe- 
ter. But is this the meaning? "Children" here 
does not mean "infants" but "offspring" or "de- 
scendants." What is the meaning, then, of the 
passage ? It seems to be about as follows : "You 
see that we have obtained the gift of the Holy 
Spirit according to the promise of Joel 2 : 28 ; but 
this promise was not intended for us alone; re- 

(39) 



40 Infant-Baptism. 

pent therefore, and be baptized every one of you 
in the name of the Lord Jesus and you, too, as 
well as we, will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, 
for the promise of the Spirit is to you also; in 
fact it is not limited to you, for it is to your chil- 
dren (offspring), and indeed to all that are afar 
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call, 
on exactly the same terms, namely, repentance, 
faith and baptism/' Faith is implied, of course. 
Peter simply means that the gift of the Holy 
Spirit will be conferred on his hearers and their 
children and ''all that are afar off'' if they com- 
ply with the conditions of repentance, faith and 
baptism; he means to say that that little group 
of Christians have no monopoly on the posses- 
sion of the Spirit, but that he will be given to 
all others on the same conditions. Infants can- 
not repent; they are not, therefore, baptized nor 
do they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit prom- 
ised by Joel. In accordance with these conditions, 
the narrative proceeds to say, 'They then that 
received his word were baptized." None except 
those who received the word were baptized, and 
hence no infants. The passage not only affords 
no ground for infant-baptism, but directly and 
powerfully opposes the practice. 

The second passage, i Cor. lo: 2, is equally 
conclusive against infant-baptism when it is 
studied in its context. Paul is pleading with the 
Corinthian church to abstain from the gross sins 
which had once characterized them and which 
had not been wholly rooted out. He warns them 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures, 41 

by recalling the sorrowful history of Israel, say- 
ing in effect, ''Beware, remember the fate of Is- 
rael ! They, too, were baptized between the 
cloud and the sea unto Moses even as you were 
baptized unto Christ; they, too, all ate the same 
spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink 
which you enjoy, for they drank of the Rock 
Christ who was following them ; notwithstanding 
these facts, God was displeased with most of them 
and overthrew them in the wilderness; they 
passed through substantially the same experiences 
as you and yet they perished; beware, therefore, 
and live righteously." It is argued by pedobap- ^ 
tists that the infants as well as the adults of Is- 
rael were baptized figuratively as they crossed 
the Red Sea, and that it must have been custom- 
ary to baptize the infants of Christian parents 
when Paul wrote, else his illustration would not 
have been appropriate. But it should be ob- 
served that nothing is said here about Christian 
baptism ; therefore, whatever conclusion is drawn 
must be by way of inference. Moreover, 
analogies are rarely capable of application in 
every particular. But supposing the analogy in 
this case to be complete, what bearing does the 
passage have on the practice of infant-baptism? 
It is true that Hebrew infants were figuratively 
immersed along with the adults between the cloud 
and the sea as the nation crossed. But is Paul 
thinking of the infants as baptized unto Moses 
that day along with the adults? Certainly not. 
He is considering those only who ate the spiritual 



42 Infant-Baptism. 

food and drank the spiritual drink and who then 
displeased God and as a consequence fell in the 
wilderness. These and these only were 
thought of as having been baptized in the 
sea. Reference to the incident to which 
Paul refers shows that those who' died 
were twenty years old and upward shortly after 
they crossed the sea when they refused to go up 
and take the land, that is, they were all over 
eighteen years of age when they were baptized 
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea (Num. 14 : 
29ff; 26: 64f). Those under this age did not 
fall in the wilderness but entered the promised 
land, and therefore could not have been any part 
of Paul's illustration. They did not come into 
his mind as baptized, sim.ply because he knew 
nothing of infant-baptism even as his readers did 
not. It was not the unresponsible infants, but 
the conscious adults who were baptized and later 
rebelled against Moses who afforded such a strik- 
ing warning to sinful church members at Corinth. 

But w^hile these passages fail to establish the 
apostolic character of infant-baptism, and in most 
cases actually weigh against belief in its apostolic 
origin when considered in the light of their con- 
texts, we are not left to- these passages alone; 
much other positive information as to the prac- 
tice of these early Christian workers can be found. 

Philip was one of the ''seven" selected by 
the church of Jerusalem to serve tables. He 
was evidently in thorough harmony with the 
mother church as is shown bv their confidence. 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 43 

When he with the rest were driven away by the 
fury of Saul of Tarsus he went down to Samaria 
and began preaching there. His labors were at- 
tended with great success and ''when they be- 
lieved Philip . . . they were baptized, both 
men and women. And Simon also himself be- 
lieved : and being baptized, he continued/' etc. 
Evidently Philip baptized none but believers, and . 
he must have represented the practice of the Je- 
rusalem church at that time (Acts 8: I2f). 

Paul's practice and views are further elucidated 
by passages in his letters. In Romans 6: 1-7, 
he discusses the status of those who have been 
baptized. They have been sinners but have died 
to sin and can no longer continue therein; they 
have been baptized into the death of Christ; the ^ 
old man of sin has been crucified with him and 
buried with him. Certainly such statements as 
these could not be made about unconscious in- 
fants. 

Again he mentions baptism in the letter to the 
churches of Galatia (3: 2'/). Arguing against 
their lapse into legal righteousness he says : ''Ye 
are all sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ. 
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ 
did put on Christ." Manifestly only those wereC 
baptized in the Galatian churches who were sons 
of God "through faith." 

In Colossians 2 : 12, Paul again links baptism 
vv^ith faith, saying to the Colossian church, you .-' 
were "buried wnth him in baptism, wherein ye 
were also raised with him through faith in the 



44 Infant-Baptism. 

working of God, who raised him from the dead." 
Faith was present in this baptism. In fact, there 
is nothing in Paul's writings which fairly inter- 
preted gives the slightest warrant for the belief 
that he knew anything of infant-baptism. First 
Corinthians 7: 14 counts directly and positively 
against the existence of the practice. 

One passage in Peter's First Letter (3: 21) 
throv/s some further light on his views and prac- 
tice. He says baptism is ''not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of 
a good conscience toward God." With this con- 
ception of baptism it could not be administered 
except where there is a conscience, that is, to 
persons who have come to years of moral ac- 
countability. Infants are excluded. 

One other scriptural argument in favor of in- 
fant-baptism must be noticed. It is the claim 
that baptism succeeded to circumcision and 
should, therefore, be administered to infants as 
circumcision was. This argument is regarded 
as very strong and even conclusive by some of 
the advocates of infant-baptism. Let us examine 
this contention. In the first place certain very 
striking differences between circumcision and 
baptism should be noted : Circumcision was 
based on natural birth, baptism on a spiritual re- 
birth ; omission of circumcision was accompanied 
by certain definite and very serious material and 
tem.poral consequences, while no one can point 
to any harmful consequences of any kind due to 
the omission of infant-baptism ; circumcision was 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 45 

administered to Jewish male children only, while 
baptism is administered to both sexes of every 
race ; circumcision was racial, baptism is personal 
and for all races ; the Jews who had been circum- 
cised in infancy were nevertheless baptized on 
their conversion to Christianity and a large sec- 
tion of Jewish Christians (the so-called Juda- 
izers) believed that the Gentile Christians must 
not only be baptized, but also be circumcised 
after baptism, two facts which show conclusively 
that Jewish Christians did not regard baptism as 
a substitute for circumcision. The Jewish oppo- 
sition to Christianity would have been still more 
violent if the Jews had thought that baptism abol- 
ished circumcision by succeeding to it. 

Let us now see if the Scriptures themselves fur- 
nish any basis for this contention. As the gos- 
pel spread into communities composed of both 
Jews and Gentiles the distinction between circum- 
cised and uncircumcised gave the Christian 
churches great trouble. The deepest cleft in the 
social body of that ancient world was the dis- 
tinction between Jew and Gentile. How did 
Christianity transcend and overcome this rift? 
It was not accomplished without great strife and 
difficulty extending over many years. Paul as 
the leading missionary to the Gentiles felt the 
full weight of the burden through all the years 
of his later life. How^ useless the controversy and 
how simple the solution if only he and the other 
Christians had understood that baptism succeeded 
to circumcision as pedobaptists allege ! All that 



.V 



46 Infant-Baptism, 

long and painful controversy with the Judaizers 
which has left such a deep mark on Acts, Romans 
and Galatians, would have been avoided. But the 
converts from the Jews were baptized on their 
profession of faith notwithstanding their circum- 
cision, and the Judaizers contended that the con- 
verts from paganism must be circumcised not- 
withstanding their baptism. Now, if Paul had 
only been sufficiently informed, as some pedo- 
baptists are, concerning the relation between bap- 
tism and circumcision, he could have said : ''You 
are all very foolish. Baptism succeeds circum- 
cision ; therefore, the Jews who are converted do 
not need to be baptized and the pagans who are 
converted and baptized do not need to be cir- 
cumcised.'' But he did not meet the difficulty in 
this way. What did he do? He nowhere even 
intimated that there was any relation or even 
analogy between circumcision and baptism, much 
less that one succeeded the other. He argued 
with the Judaizers that the original basis of jus- 
tification was faith not circumcision (a doctrine 
which had also been taught in the Old Testa- 
ment : Deut. 10 : i6; 30: 6; Jer. 4: 4; 9: 26), 
and that Abraham ''received the sign of circum- 
cision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith 
which he had while he was in uncircumcision : 
that he might be the father of all them that be- 
lieve'' (Rom. 4: 11); that circumcision never 
profited except as it was accompanied by obedi- 
ence, for "if thou be a transgressor of the law, 
thy circumcision is become uncircumcision" and 



Infant-Baptism and Scriptures. 47 

useless (Rom. 2: 25); that it is now abolished 
or succeeded by faith in Christ, 'Tor he is not a 
Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that cir- 
cumcision which is outward in the flesh : but he 
is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision 
is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter" 
(Rom. 2: 28f) ; ''Was any man called being cir- 
cumcised ? let him not become uncircumcised. Cir- 
cumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is noth- 
ing" (i Cor. 7: i8f) ; "Behold, I Paul say unto 
you, that, if ye receive circumcision, Christ will 
profit you nothing . . . For in Christ Jesus neither 
circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumci- 
sion; but faith working through love" (Gal. 5: 
2 and 6) ; "As many as desire to make a fair show 
in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised; 
only that they may not be persecuted for the cross 
of Christ. . . . For neither is circumcision any- 
thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature" 
(Gal. 6: 12, 15) ; in Christ "ye were also cir- 
cumcised w^ith a circumcision not made with 
hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, 
in the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2: 11) ; "for 
we are the circumcision, who worship by the 
Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have 
no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3). These 
passages are sufficient (they could be greatly 
multiplied) to show that Paul had no idea what- 
soever that baptism succeeded circumcision. 
Rather the old ceremony was abolished by the 
cross of Christ; circumcision, if the old verbiage 
must be retained, is of the heart, not made by 



48 Infant-Baptism. 

hands but by faith in Christ. He that insists on 
circumcision makes the cross void. In all the 
multitude of passages in which Paul treats cir- 
cumcision he couples it with baptism but once 
(Col. 2: iif), and there he bases baptism on 
faith. If baptism is in any sense like circum- 
cision it is the circumcision of Abraham himself, 
based on his faith, and not that of his descend- 
ants based on birth and racial descent. 

All the pedobaptist arguments from Scripture 
are utterly worthless and futile, and many of their 
scholars are recognizing this fact and transferring 
the basis of argument to another field, as will be 
seen in a later chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 



INFANT-BAPTISM APPEARS AT END OF 
SECOND CENTURY. 



Not only is there no warrant in the Scriptures 
for the belief that infant-baptism was practiced 
or enjoined either by Christ or the apostles, but 
subsequent history reveals the fact that it did not 
appear anywhere until near the end of the second 
century, more than one hundred and fifty years 
after the death of Christ, and was administered 
only by way of exception for centuries after that 
time. 

For the first eighty or ninety years after the 
death of the last apostle there is not the faintest 
trace in Christian literature of the practice. From 
many parts of the Christian world literature from 
this period has been preserved and handed down 
to us, and in this literature repentance and faith 
are everywhere assumed as conditions of baptism. 
Nor were the Christian churches of that period 
capable of that hollow mockery in which a proxy 
says in the name of the child, 'T repent,'' 'T be- 
lieve.'' To the early church everything connected 
with its religion w^as real, genuine and vital. 
Each one repented, believed and was baptized 
for himself. The age of magic and proxies had 
not come. 

^ (49) 



50 Infant-Baptism. 

Very early a saving significance was ascribed 
to baptism, but repentance and faith were always 
required before baptism. Baptism was always a 
faith-baptism even though it was thought to se- 
cure remission. A few extracts from this litera- 
ture will show the accuracy of these statements. 
In the following pages all the literature of any im- 
portance which has any bearing on the subject of 
infant-baptism in this period is quoted. 

Probably the earliest reference to baptism in 
post-biblical literature is found in the Epistle of 
Barnabas. Neither the place nor the date of its 
composition is known, but it probably comes from 
Syria and dates from lOO to 120 A.D. Some 
scholars put it earlier. Reference is made to bap- 
tism in chapter XI, where the author in comment- 
ing on Psalm I says : ''Blessed are they who, 
placing their trust in the cross, have gone down 
into the water." Later, in the same chapter, in 
commenting on a passage in Ezekiel, he says : 
'This meaneth, that we indeed descend into the 
water full of sins and defilement, but come up, 
bearing fruit in our heart, having fear and trust 
in Jesus in our spirit." The author finds bap- 
tism in passages where it does not exist, and 
gives to it a significance which it never had in 
Scripture, but it is perfectly evident that he 
knows nothing about infant-baptism. Those who 
are baptized have already put their trust in the 
cross and they come up from the water with the 
fear and trust of Jesus in their spirits. These 
are not the experiences of unconscious infants. 



Infant-Baptism of Second Century. 51 

The implication against the practice of infant- 
baptism at this date is unmistakable. 

Another work of unknown authorship, prob- 
ably coming from the same period and region as 
the Epistle of Barnabas, is "The Teaching of the 
Twelve Apostles/' It is a sort of pastor's hand- 
book, evidently intended for general circulation 
and use in Christian instruction. It, therefore, 
probably represents the beliefs and practices of 
a wide circle of Christians about 120 A.D. 
Chapter VII gives instructions for the proper 
administration of baptism, as follows : ^'Having 
first said all these things'' (i. e., having taught 
the contents of the preceding chapters) ''baptize 
in the name of the Father, etc. . . . But before 
the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the bap- 
tized, and whatever others can; but thou shalt 
order the baptized to fast one or two days be- 
fore." These regulations require the candidate 
to be instructed in the moral precepts of the 
earlier chapters of the book, and to fast at least 
two days before baptism. These are rather hard 
conditions to be imposed upon infants. Manifestly 
the author knows nothing of infant-baptism. 
Baptism so far as he knows it is administered 
to those who can learn and fast, and to no others. 

The ablest Christian writer of the second cen- 
tury was Justin Martyr. He was born about no 
A.D., at Samaria, in Palestine, of Gentile par- 
ents. He obtained a finished education and trav- 
eled widely, devoting himself to the study of vari- 
ous systems of philosophy in a vain attempt to 



52 Infant-Baptism. 

find satisfaction for his mind and his heart. After 
his very striking and interesting conversion to 
Christianity he spent the remainder of his hfe 
in the service of his new-found faith, travehng, 
writing, conversing, debating with all whom he 
met, while he continued to wear his philosopher's 
cloak. He thus learned the practices of the 
churches by direct contact with them over wide 
areas of the ancient Christian world, and there- 
fore speaks with unusual weight on all matters 
pertaining to the Christian customs of his time. 
About 145 A.D. he addressed an ''Apology,'' or 
defense of the Christians, to the Emperor Antoni- 
nus Pius and the Roman people, in which he re- 
futed the charges made against the Christians and 
carefully explained just what they did practice. 
In chapter LXI he describes and explains to his 
pagan opponents and persecutors Christian bap- 
tism. He says to them : "I will also relate the 
manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God 
when we had been made new through Christ. 
... As many as are persuaded and believe that 
what we teach and say is true, and undertake to 
be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray 
and to entreat God with fasting, for the remis- 
sion of their sins that are past, we praying and 
fasting with them. Then they are brought by 
us where there is water, and are regenerated in 
the same manner in which we were ourselves 
regenerated. For in the name of God, the Father 
and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, they then re- 
ceive the washing with water." 



Infant-Baptism of Second Century. 53 

In chapter LXV he continues, in treating of 
the Supper : "But we, after we have thus washed 
him who has been convinced and has consented 
to our teaching, we bring him to the place where 
those who are called brethren are assembled, in 
order that we may offer hearty prayers in com- 
mon for ourselves and for the baptized person. . . . 
Having ended the prayers, we salute one another 
with a kiss. There is then brought to the presi- 
dent of the brethren bread and a cup of wine 
mixed with water,'' and the Supper is celebrated. 

It is perfectly evident that Justin, while believ- 
ing that baptism is the bath of regeneration, yet 
knows nothing of the baptism of infants. Those 
who are baptized have committed sins, they choose 
to be born again, they repent and believe the 
Christian teachings and undertake to live accord- 
ingly, they fast and pray before baptism and join 
in the celebration of the Lord's Supper immedi- 
ately afterwards. These are not the experiences 
of infants. And in this connection it should be 
noted that this w^idely traveled Christian man is 
stating not his own convictions and practices only, 
but the practices of the Christian churches in gen- 
eral throughout the Roman emipire for the infor- 
mation of the Roman emperor and people. Had 
he been perverting the facts his deception could 
have been exposed by hosts of his readers. Evi- 
dently the churches in the Roman empire at the 
middle of the second century were unacquainted 
with any baptism other than faith-baptism. 



54 Infant-Baptism, 

The next writer to be considered is Hermas. 
He was a brother of Pius, bishop of the church of 
Rome from about 140 to 154. His position as 
brother of the Roman bishop gave him excep- 
tional opportvuiities for acquaintance with the be- 
Hefs and practices of the Christian world, for 
Rome was the center of Christian life for all the 
western churches and kept up intimate relations, 
with those of the East as well. About 160 Her- 
mas wrote a strange apocalyptic book which he 
called the ''Shepherd/' It was held in such high 
esteem by the churches of that day that it was 
long read in the public services as the books now 
in our New Testament were used. It must, there- 
fore, have represented the beliefs and practices 
of that time, else it would not have been so used. 
Like Justin a few years earlier, it ascribes sav- 
ing efficacy to baptism, knowing no other means 
for the remission of sins. As seen in ''Vision'' 
III, chapters II to IX, and in "Similitude" IX, the 
growing "Church" is compared to a tower which 
is being built upon the water and whose stones 
are drawn up out of the water, indicating that 
Hermas regards baptism as the very founda- 
tion of the Church. But there is not an 
intimation of infant-baptism. On the con- 
trary, the implication is very clear for faith-bap- 
tism. In "Commandment" IV, chapter III, 
Hermas says to his angelic instructor, "I heard 
sir, some teachers maintain that there is no other 
repentance than that which takes place when we 
descended into the water and received remission 



Infant-Baptism of Second Century, 55 

of our sins." Baptism is believed to secure re- 
mission but it is preceded by repentance, and so 
infant-baptism is excluded. Infants were re- 
garded by Hermas as innocent and since baptism 
in his thought was for the removal of sin, it never 
occurred to him that they should be baptized. 
(Similitude IX, chapters XVI, XXIX, XXXI.) 

For about thirty years after the date of the 
"Shepherd'' we have no literature of any impor- 
tance bearing on the subject of baptism. But 
near the end of the second century three men of 
capital importance to the history of Christianity 
appear in widely separated regions. They are 
Clement in Egypt, Irenseus in Gaul or modern 
France, and Tertullian in North Africa. All of 
them were men of the highest ability and of great 
learning and influence ; consequently their testi- 
mony is of the greatest value. Let us see what 
we can glean from their extensive writings. 

Clement was the most cultured Christian of his 
day, having traveled and studied in all the lands 
of the eastern Mediterranean. From 193 to 202 
he was head of the catechetical school at Alexan- 
dria, the greatest Christian school of the ancient 
world. In connection with his teaching he wrote 
extensively, and various writings have been pre- 
served to us. In a work entitled "The Peda- 
gogue,'' or "Instructor," he sets forth his ideal 
of Christian teachings, practices and life. The 
book is intended for general use as a manual for 
the instruction of Christians. Naturally it treats 
baptism along with other subjects on which some 



56 Infant-Baptism, 

instruction was felt to be necessary. These in- 
structions for Christian readers are exactly in ac- 
cord with what we have already learned from 
earlier writers. He believes that baptism is the 
appointed means for the remission of sins, but he 
knov/s nothing of infant-baptism. In Book I, 
chapter VI, he assigns wonderful power to bap- 
tism, but says : ''Instruction leads to faith, and 
faith with baptism is trained by the Holy Spirit.'' 
In another connection he says : 'Tn the same 
way, therefore, we also, repenting of our sins, re- 
nouncing our iniquities, purified by baptism, 
speed back to the eternal light, children to the 
Father.'' He makes baptism follow repentance 
and renunciation of sins, and there is not in this 
book intended for Christian instruction or in any 
other of his voluminous writings a line to indi- 
cate that he had ever heard of infant-baptism. 

Even pedobaptist writers admit that the litera- 
ture of the second century so far examined is 
silent about infant-baptism, though they fail to 
see its powerful support of faith-baptism. But 
we have reached the point where they claim to 
discover the practice of a non-faith baptism of 
infants. As we approach the study of these docu- 
ments let us remember that they were written 
nearly a century after the death of the last apos- 
tle, time enough for momentous changes in the 
beliefs and practices of the Christian world as we 
have already seen. 

Irenaeus was born in Asia Minor before the 
middle of the second century and died at Lyons, 



Infant-Baptism of Second Century. 57 

in France, after 190. He studied under the 
famous Polycarp of Smyrna, and went while still 
a young man with the Greek emigrants to Lyons, 
w^here he became bishop in 177. His official posi- 
tion in this the most important church in that part 
of the world at that time afforded excellent oppor- 
tunities for knowing Christian usages, and also 
laid upon him exceptional responsibility for pre- 
serving and perpetuating these usages. More- 
over, he had come from Asia, where he had been 
trained in the best Christian practices, into the 
West in his young manhood. On his long jour- 
ney he had almost certainly visited many of the 
leading churches on the northern shores of the 
Mediterranean, learning at first hand their usages. 
Surely if any one will know and insist on strict 
observance of correct ecclesiastical ceremonial it 
is he. Does he insist on the practice of infant- 
baptism? He does not once enjoin it, and there 
is no case of its administration by him. No one 
claims the discovery of either in his writings. 

But it is claimed that infant-baptism is implied 
in one passage of his w^ork ''Against Heresies,'' 
published about 190. By putting together two 
widely separated passages (H, 22, 4, and HI, 17, 
I ) , some pedobaptist scholars claim that they dis- 
cover infant-baptism. The first passage reads as 
follows: ''He (Jesus) came to save all through 
means of himself — all, I say, who through him 
are born again to God — infants, and children, and 
boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore 
passed through every age, becoming an infant for 



58 Infant-Baptism. 

infants, a child for children/' etc. This is the 
crucial passage. With it is coupled the second 
which reads: ''Giving to the disciples the power 
of regeneration into God, he said to them. Go 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father,'' etc. It is argued that baptism is 
recognized in the second passage as the divinely- 
appointed means of salvation and that infants are 
mentioned in the first passage as objects of sal- 
vation, and that therefore infants must have been 
baptized. 

The passages are notable in the baptismal con- 
troversy, in the first place, because they constitute 
the first reference to infant-baptism in post- 
biblical literature, granting that they refer to in- 
fant-baptism at all; and in the second place be- 
cause infants are found in one passage and bap- 
tism in the other, which is located in another 
book. In the former of these passages in which 
infants are mentioned it is said that Jesus be- 
came an infant and passed through infancy to 
save infants. Baptism is not mentioned in the 
passage or its context. All that is said is that 
he came to save and sanctify infants and so be- 
came an infant. It requires more than usual 
sagacity to discover infant-baptism here. But 
granting that it is here it is more than 150 years 
after the death of Christ before it appears. Faith- 
baptism has often been described and enjoined 
in these years, but infant-baptism has not once 
been mentioned in any way. The conclusion that 
infant-baptism was neither practiced nor known 



Infant-Baptism, of Second Century. 59 

earlier than Irenaeus seems irresistible, and it is 
not at all probable that he knew it. Other pas- 
sages distinctly imply that he did not know any 
practice other than faith-baptism. 

But Tertullian, the next writer to be studied, 
was certainly acquainted with the practice of bap- 
tizing children who were too young to exercise 
faith, and he was the first Christian writer of 
wdiom this can be asserted with confidence. He 
was born of pagan parents at Carthage, in North 
Africa, about the middle of the second century. 
He was educated in rhetoric and law and was 
converted to Christianity in mature life. The 
rest of his life his brilliant talents were devoted 
to the defense and propagation of the Christian 
faith. He was not a widely traveled man, but 
reflects Christian usage and opinion in North 
Africa. 

He touches on baptism in many of his writings, 
and finally composed an entire treatise on that ' 
subject. As to the importance of baptism and its 
place in the remission of sins he is in general 
accord with earlier writers ; it is, in his opinion, 
under ordinary circumstances the only means of 
remission, but it is not absolutely necessary, for 
''sound faith is secure of salvation,'' provided 
there is some hindrance to the acquisition of bap- 
tism. Repentance and faith are presupposed. In 
describing baptism (de corona HI) he says: 
''When we are going to enter the water, but a 
little before, in the presence of the congregation 
and under the hand of the president, w^e solemnly 



go Infant-Baptism. 

profess that .we disown the devil, and his pomp, 
and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice im- 
mersed. . . . Then, when we are taken up 
(as new-born babes) we taste first of all a mix- 
ture of milk and honey, and from that day we 
refrain from the daily bath for a whole week." 
This is certainly a faith-baptism ; no infant could 
fulfill the conditions. Moreover, the author is 
describing the common usage of the North 
African churches at this time, and not stating 
his own view of what baptism ought to be. 

Again in his tract on ''Repentance,'' chapter 
VI, he urges on his readers that repentance must 
be genuine and fruitful of good works, but should 
then be followed by baptism as the seal. Some 
who professed repentance, relying on baptism to 
remove all sin at the end of life, were postponing 
baptism and continuing in sin. Against this cus- 
tom he contends earnestly that ''baptismal wash- 
ing is a sealing of faith, which faith is begun 
and is commended by the faith of repentance. 
We are not washed in order that we may cease 
sinning, but because v/e have ceased, since in 
heart we have been bathed already.'' This was 
Tertullian's view as well as the usual practice, but 
it was not the sole opinion in North Africa about 
this time. In his tract "On Baptism," written 
some years later, he reveals and opposes what 
was probably the very beginnings of child-bap- 
tism. Certainly it is the first mention of the prac- 
tice in literature. In chapter XVIII of this tract 
he discusses the persons who are to be baptized. 



Infant-Baptism of Second Century. 61 

He says a new danger has arisen ; people are ac- 
cepting baptism rashly and without proper spirit- 
ual preparation. ''But they whose office it is, know 
that baptism is not rashly to be administered/' 
He admits that the Ethiopian eunuch and Paul 
were baptized quickly, but he contends that they 
had a developed faith and were baptized under 
the imperative of direct providential intervention, 
and it ought not to be so administered ordinarily. 
He proceeds, ''According to the circumstances 
and disposition, and even age of each individual, 
the delay of baptism is preferable; principally, 
however, in the case of little children (parvttlos) . 
For why is it necessary — if (baptism itself) is not 
so necessary — that the sponsors likewise should 
be thrust into danger ? Who both themselves, by 
reason of mortality, may fail to fulfill their prom- 
ises, and m.ay be disappointed by the development 
of an evil disposition in those for whom they 
stand. The Lord does indeed say, 'Forbid them 
not to com.e unto me.' Let them come, then, 
while they are growing up ; let them come while - 
they are learning, while they are learning whither / 
to come; let them become Christians when they 
have become able to know Christ. Why does the 
innocent period of life hasten to the remission of 
sins? . . . Let them know how to ask for 
salvation that you may seem (at least) to have 
given to him that asketh.''' 

In this passage we undoubtedly come upon the 
baptism of children who are too young to exer- 
cise repentance and faith. It is evidently not 



g2 Infant-Baptism. 

common and makes the impression of being at its 
beginning. 

From this document we see clearly that as 
\ far as history can speak on the subject in- 
fant baptism began in North Africa, at Car- 
thage, shortly before the close of the second 

^J » century. Tertullian, the greatest scholar and 
writer of the time, opposes the innovation, be- 
cause the children are in the "innocent period of 
life," when baptism, the ordinary means of re- 
mission, is not needed. Whether it existed here 
only or was also beginning elsewhere we cannot 
say. Belief in the saving efficacy of baptism 
is beginning to show one of its effects; it is 
leading some to postpone baptism to the end 
of life while they continue in sin, and induc- 
ing others to bring their helpless babes to 
baptism in the hope of regenerating the child in 
its unconscious infancy. Christian parents are 
beginning to believe that babes who die unbap- 
tized are lost. And it is interesting to observe 
that infant-baptism was so thoroughly in accord 
V with the other sacramental corruptions which 

w' were creeping into the churches at this time that 
Tertullian was the only man, so far as we know, 
who protested against the introduction of infant- 
baptism. That it was an innovation at this time 
is shown by his opposition at Carthage and the 
silence of his two great contemporaries at Alex- 
andria and Lyons. Nor is there any reason to 
believe that he was alone in his opposition. Had 
it been an apostolic tradition it is inconceivable 

^^, that Tertullian would have opposed it. 



CHAPTER VI. 



INFANT-BAPTISM SLOWLY GAINS 
GROUND. 



The next writer to mention baptism was Hip- 
polytus. He lived at Rome, but was an opponent 
of the bishop of Rome and himself probably an 
opposing bishop. He finally suffered martyrdom 
in 235 A.D. In a sermon on ''The Holy The- 
ophany/' or baptism of Jesus, he delivers a won- 
derful panegyric on the dignity and glory of bap- 
tism, and its power to remove sin. But in his 
thought it is received voluntarily and after re- 
pentance and faith. In his dramatic style he 
makes John say to Jesus : 'T cannot baptize those 
who come to me unless they first confess fully 
their sins. Be it so then that I baptize thee what 
hast thou to confess? Thou art the remover of 
sins, and wilt thou be baptized with the baptism 
of repentance?'' (Ref. of Her. 4.) Lest some one 
should say that he refers to John's baptism only, 
which was confessedly a ''baptism of repentance," 
I quote from 10, where he is dealing with bap- 
tism as it was regarded in his day: "He who 
comes down in faith to the laver of regeneration, 
and renounces the devil, and joins himself to 
Christ; who denies the enemy, and makes the 
confession that Christ is God; who puts ofif the 

(63) 



64 Infant-Baptism. 

bondage, and puts on the adoption, — he comes up 
from the baptism brilHant as the sun, flashing 
forth the beams of righteousness.'^ If this great 
scholar and author who Hved at Rome, the heart 
of Western Christendom, knew anything about 
infant-baptism his writings do not indicate it, 
but rather the direct contrary. 
, We return now at the middle of the third cen- 
^ tury to Carthage and find infant-baptism suffi- 
ciently established in this section of North Africa 
to have the support of a large synod of bishops 
held at Carthage in the year 252. Many questions 
have been raised in the course of the centuries 
by this unevangelical innovation and this synod 
in 252 dealt with the first one to arise. One 
Fidus, a bishop of that region, was in doubt as 
to whether baptism should be administered im- 
mediately after the birth of the child or be post- 
poned to the eighth day, after the manner of cir- 
cumcision. In his perplexity he writes Cyprian, 
the great bishop of Carthage, for advice. Cyprian 
would not take the responsibility of deciding so 
new and weighty a question himself, and, there- 
fore, laid it before a synod of North African 
bishops of whom sixty were present. They de- 
cided unanimously against postponement. The 
reasons for this decision as stated by Cyprian 
were as follows : 'The mercy and grace of God 
are not to be refused to any one born of man," 
even infants a day old; ''God, as he does not ac- 
1 ^C^ cept the person, so does not accept the age ;" the 
^ baptizer ought not to feel repulsion at kissing a 



Infant-Baptism Gains Ground. g5 

baby just born as Fidus declared he did; (the 
administrator then kissed the person baptized) ; 
baptism does not succeed to circumcision, ^Vhich 
figure ceased when by and by the truth came, and 
spiritual circumcision was given to us/' 

This is the first official approval of infant-bap- ^ 
tism in Christian history. It came in the year 
252. Can any reasonable man believe that Fidus 
would not have known whether to postpone bap- 
tism till the eighth day and that Cyprian would 
have called a synod of all the neighboring bishops 
to decide the matter if infant-baptism had been 
instituted by Christ, had been practiced by the ^, , 
apostles and the Christian church for over two 
hundred years ? Such a supposition puts a strain 
on Christian credulity which even the advocates 
of infant-baptism will find it difficult to bear. 

In this chapter we v/ill consider but one more 
writer, Origen of Alexandria. He was born of 
Christian parents about 185 and died at Csesarea 
in 254. He was a great scholar and teacher, and 
for a timie he was head of the catechetical school 
at Alexandria. Many of his works, which were 
written in Greek, have come down to us only in 
the Latin translations made by Jerome and Ru- 
finus a century after the author's death. In these 
Latin translations there are several striking ref- 
erences to infant-baptism, while a few passages 
in his extant Greek works seem to indicate a 
knowledge of the practice, though it is not ex- 
pressly mentioned in any extant Greek text. 

These phenomena have led some scholars to sus- 
5 



,.^ 



66 Infant-Baptism, 

pect that the Latin text has been corrupted by 
interpolation. This may be the case, but infant- 
baptism, as we have seen, was practiced at Car- 
thage before his death, and may have been known 
to him. The manner in which the subject is treated 
indicates that it was an innovation and was caus- 
ing no end of discussion and trouble. In a 
homily on Luke 14, he says : "I will mention 
a thing that causes frequent inquiries among the 
brethren. Infants are baptized for the forgive- 
ness of sins. Of what sins ? Or when have they 
sinned? Or how can any reason of the laver in 
their case hold good, but according to that sense 
that we mentioned even now : none is free from 
pollution, though his life be but of the length of 
one day upon the earth? And it is for that rea- 
son because by the sacrament of baptism the pol- 
lution of our sin is taken away." This quotation, 
if genuine in Origen's writings, reveals the fact of 
the practice and the reason assigned for the same. 
However, the passage upon which pedobaptists 
lay most stress is in his commentary on Romans, 
Lib. V, chapter 9, where he says : 'Tor this 
(original sin) also it was, that the church had 
from the apostles a tradition to give baptism even 
unto infants." This is the first assertion in 
Christian literature of apostolic authority for in- 
fant-baptism. Naturally, pedobaptists have em- 
phasized its significance and importance. But it 
should be remembered that Origen, great scholar 
though he was, made serious blunders about other 
matters, and was certainly not infallible as to in- 



Infant-Baptism Gains Gi'ound, Q'J 

fant-baptism ; the reasons which he assigns for 
the practice would hardly be accepted as correct 
by evangelical Protestants. If, then, he were 
wrong as to the reasons for baptism may he not 
have been wrong as to its origin. Besides he "^ 
himself cites no Scripture in its support as he 
certainly would have done had he known any. 
The most that he dared to assert in his conscien- 
tious efforts to sustain a growing ecclesiastical 
custom, was apostolic tradition. What corrup- 
tions have crept into the church through tradi- 
tions ! Infant-baptism is confessedly one. 

As we have seen in the preceding pages in- 
fant-baptism was practiced with ecclesiastical 
recognition at Carthage as early as 250 A.D. 
Moreover, Origen, at Alexandria, if we can trust 
the Latin translation of his works, knew of the 
practice and believed that it had been handed 
down by tradition from the apostles, though he a^' 
made no claim that it was scriptural. But it must 
not be concluded from these facts that it was prac- 
ticed throughout the entire Christian world at that 
time, or w^as the general custom even at Carthage. 
Even here it was still probably exceptional, ad- 
ministered only in cases of dangerous illness or 
for some other special reason. It made progress 
very slowly and is not found in other lands until 
far down into the fourth century. Indeed, it * 
may be called Africa's distinctive contribution to 
Christian history. 

The brief compass of this work will not per- 
mit more than a few quotations illustrating the 



68 Infant-Baptism. 

growth of the practice from this point onward to 
its complete triumph. These will, however, be 
sufficient to show the general progress up to the 
Reformation. 

The next book to be noticed is Apostolic Con- 
stitutions. It serves as a manual of instruction in 
church order intended for the instruction of clergy 
and laity. The author or authors are unknown 
and the date and place of composition are like- 
wise uncertain. It is generally agreed, however, 
that it could not have been written before 250 
A.D., and many scholars believe it to have been 
compiled many years later. Baptism is treated 
extensively and often, and always with the clear 
im.plication that only believers are to be baptized. 
Repentance, faith and instruction are uniformly 
required. In Book III, chapter XVII we read : 
'^Let him that is to be baptized be free from 
all iniquity ; one that has left off to work sin, the 
friend of God, the enemy of the devil, the heir 
of God the Father, the fellow-heir of his Son; 
one that has renounced Satan, and the demons, 
and Satan's deceits; chaste," etc. 

The above quotation fairly represents the gen- 
eral tenor of the entire work as can be seen in 
Book II, chapter VII, and Book VII, chapters 
XXI and XXXIX and the following chapters, 
where there is extended instructions as to the 
preparation of the candidate for baptism and also 
the ritual to be used in its administration. The 
ritual is for believers only. But in Book VI, 
chapter XV, there is an argum.ent against the 



Infant-Baptism Gains Ground, 69 

postponement of baptism till just before death, 
as was frequently done, and the chapter closes 
with these two sentences : ''Do you also baptize 
your infants, and bring them up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord. For, says he, 'Suf- 
fer the little children to come unto me, and for- 
bid them not !' '' These two sentences, if they / 
are genuine, constitute the earliest injunction to 
parents to have their infants baptized to be found 
in Christian literature. But in view of the fact 
that they contain the only reference to infant- 
baptism in the entire work and flatly contradict 
all its other teachings concerning baptism, it 
seems very probable that they are a later inter- 
polation. But granting that they are genuine, 
they bring the first ecclesiastical recommendation 
of infant-baptism down to a date subsequent to 
250 A.D., more than 200 years after the death 
of Jesus. 

In a curious collection of literature going un- 
der the name of Clement and coming probably 
from the third century there are many references 
to baptism. Infant-baptism is nowhere men- 
tioned or implied, but repentance and faith are 
everywhere presupposed. 

This brief survey has touched on all the liter- 
ature of the subject in the third century. We 
pass now to the fourth. It was replete with great 
men and consequently is rich in literature. Dur- 
ing the first half of the century the great Arian 
controversy turned mien's minds to the doctrine 
of the person of Christ. Baptism is micntioned 



/' 



70 Infant-Baptism, 

only occasionally and incidentally, but in these 
incidental references there is no trace of infant- 
baptism. Unfortunately we have no literature 
from Carthage where we know infant-baptism 
was practiced, and the literature we have does not 
reveal its existence anywhere else. On the con- 
trary, it still indicates that believers only were bap- 
tized. Some of the more important of these 
writers will now be 'examined. 

Cyril, the great bishop of Jerusalem (d. 386), 
left behind him twenty-three lectures delivered 
to catechumens or those who were preparing for 
baptism. They constitute a body of instruction 
with which catechumens were expected to be 
familiar before they received baptism. In lec- 
tures nineteen and twenty he treats baptism, and 
there is not a hint that there is such a thing on 
the earth as infant-baptism. On the contrary, 
repentance and faith are required. The ritual of 
baptism, used at Jerusalem, is given in detail. It 
requires the candidate, standing in the baptistry, 
to face the west and renounce Satan and all his 
works, and then face the east and repeat the 
creed, etc. These acts are impossible for infants. 

Neither Eusebius, the first great Christian his- 
torian (d. 340), nor Basil the Great (d. 379), 
nor his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395), 
mentions infant-baptism. Basil's view of bap- 
tism may be seen from the following quotation 
from his work ^'On the Spirit,"" chapter 12 : 
'Taith and baptism are two kindred and insep- 
arable ways of salvation : faith is perfected 



Infant-Baptism Gains Ground. 71 

through baptism, baptism is estabHshed through 
faith, and both are completed by the same names. 
For as we beheve in the Father and the Son and 
the Holy Ghost, so were we also baptized in the 
name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Ghost : first comes the confession, introduc- 
ing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting 
the seal on our assent/' Nothing could be more 
clearly opposed to infant-baptism. 

Gregory of Nyssa in his work on ''The Great 
Catechism,'' a manual of instructions for those 
who prepare catechumens for baptism, is almost 
as clear and explicit. In speaking of the removal 
of sin he says (chapter XXV) : 'Two things 
concurring to this removal of sin — the penitence 
of the transgressor and his imitation of the death 
(in his immersion). By these two things the man 
is in a measure freed from his congenital ten- 
dency to evil; by his penitence he advances to 
a hatred of and averseness from sin, and by his 
death (baptism) he works out the suppression 
of evil." Again, in chapter XXXIX, he makes 
this remarkable statement which absolutely pre- 
cludes the possibility of infant-baptism : "While 
all things else that are born are subject to the 
impulse of those that beget them, the spiritual 
birth is dependent on the power of him who is 
being born ;" that is, the free choice of the human 
will is a necessary condition of spiritual birth. 
Since baptism was regarded as the indispensable 
means of rebirth, baptism must have been admin- 
istered on the voluntary action of a believer. 



^ 



72 Infant-Baptism. 

Gregory Nazianzen was one of the great pul- 
pit orators of the fourth century, a theologian 
and defender of orthodoxy. Because of the 
splendor of his gifts he was chosen in 379 to be 
bishop or patriarch of Constantinople, next to 
Rome the most important see in Christendom. 
In this pulpit he preached in 381 a sermon on 
''Holy Baptism.'' The general tenor of the ser- 
mon shows conclusively that the usual practice 
in Constantinople was still faith-baptism. He ad- 
dresses adults concerning their own baptism, 
pleads with them not to postpone baptism to the 
end of life, but 'let some time intervene between 
the grave and death, that not only the account of 
sins be wiped out, but something better be written 
in its place'' (XH). While the whole sermon 
is addressed to adults, urging them, against their 
reluctance and excuses, to be baptized, he also 
mentions infant-baptism. He is the first writer 
in the Eastern or Greek church, indeed the first 
outside of Africa, to touch the subject or indi- 
cate in any way any acquaintance with the exist- 
ence of such a practice. Like Tertullian, the first 
to mention infant-baptism in Africa, Gregory the 
first to mention it outside of Africa, is opposed 
to it except in cases of dangerous illness. He 
represents the people as uncertain as to their duty 
in the matter, positive evidence that it was an in- 
novation and by no means established among 
them. He says they ask : "What have you to 
say about those who' are still children, and con- 
scious neither of the loss nor of the grace ? Are 



Infant-Baptism Gains Ground. 73 

we to baptize them, too?'' His answer is: ''Cer- 
tainly, if any danger presses. For it is better 
that they be unconsciously sanctified than that 
they should depart unsealed and uninitiated. 
But in respect of others I give my advice to wait 
till the end of the third year, or a little more or 
less, when they may be able to listen and to an- 
swer something about the sacrament: that even 
though they do not perfectly understand it, yet 
at any rate they may know the outlines ; and then 
to sanctify them in soul and body wnth the great 
sacrament of our consecration. For this is how 
the matter stands ; at that time they begin to be 
responsible for their lives, when reason is ma- 
tured and they learn the mystery of life'' 
(XXVIII). From this excerpt it is evident that 
at Constantinople in 381 A.D. the facts concern- 
ing infant-baptism were as follows : ( i ) Infant- 
baptism was not generally practiced; (2) the peo- 
ple were in doubt as to its value, and were op- 
posed to it; (3) the great bishop recommended 
it only in cases of dangerous illness ; (4) in the 
case of healthy children he advised its postpone- 
ment until the children ''begin to be responsible 
for their lives." 

The next writer to be noticed is John Chryso- 
stom, "the golden-mouthed." He became bishop 
of Constantinople in 396 and died in 407. He is 
of course acquainted with infant-baptism, but his 
homilies make it perfectly clear that it is still the 
exception. He does not oppose it, neither does 



74 Infant-Baptism, 

he recommend it. It is to him simply an allow- 
able alternative time for baptism. 

Returning now to the Western or Latin church, 
we find no certain evidence of the practice of in- 
fant-baptism outside of Africa on the north side 
of the Mediterranean before the end of the fourth 
century. Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan 
(d. 397), in his treatment of baptism in his work 
*^On the Mysteries," chapters I-VII, does not in- 
timate that there is such a thing as infant-bap- 
tism, but rather treats the whole subject as if the 
only persons to be baptized were instructed be- 
lievers. In his description of the ceremonial he 
says that candidates renounce the devil and his 
works, accept Christ, are dipped in water, put on 
w^hite clothing, etc. However, there are tv/o pas- 
sages which indicate that he may have been ac- 
quainted with the practice. Jerome does not treat 
the subject of baptism. 



CHAPTER VII. 



INFANT-BAPTISM TRIUMPHANT 

THROUGH BAPTISMAL 

REGENERATION. 



We come now to the great character whose 
genius did so much to fix the customs and work 
out the theological buttresses of the CathoUc 
church, Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354-430). 
Again it is North Africa where progress is made 
in the history of infant-baptism. We have now 
reached the period when the doctrine of infant- 
baptism is settled for the Catholic church in an 
effort to justify it against its opponents and those 
who doubted. Augustine is a saint in the Roman 
church, and he richly deserves the distinction if 
one can earn it by service, for it was he who first 
gave a consistent theological basis for many of 
the distinctive doctrines of that church, among 
them infant-baptism. His noble mother, Monnica, 
did not have him baptized as an infant, desiring 
to wait till the danger of youthful pollutions was 
in some micasure past. When a boy he fell quite 
ill and requested baptism, but she refused it even 
under those distressing circumstances and he was 
not baptized till his conversion in mature life. 

In the course of his life he was involved in 
many controversies in which he wrought out the 

(75) 



^ 



76 Infant-Baptism, 

theological basis of the Catholic church. One of 
these was with Pelagius, a British monk, over the 
nature of sin and grace and salvation. In this 
controversy infant-baptism came under serious 
discussion for the first time in history so far as 
our literary sources enable us to follow the his- 
tory. The Pelagians believing that infants were 
innocent, sinless, could find no logical and satis- 
factory reason for baptizing them. Apparentlv 
they had at first denied the necessity and doubted 
the expendiency of the practice; later they ad- 
mitted its importance, but could never render an 
effective reason for the practice on the basis of 
their view of the innocence of infants. 

Augustine believed profoundly that human 
nature was corrupt and sinful from birth ; he be- 
lieved with equal firmness that baptism was ab- 
solutely necessary to the regeneration and salva- 
tion of every sinner. Hence, infants as well as 
adults must be baptized or they were condemned 
to an eternal hell if they died unbaptized. Later 
the Catholic church in mitigation of this horrible 
doctrine invented the limbo of infants, where un- 
baptized infants dying in infancy are .restrained 
forever from the face of God but are not actually 
subjected to the pains of hell. Augustine knew 
of the idea but spurned it. To him the unbap- 
tized infant dying in infancy was consigned to 
the torments of an awful and eternal hell, and it 
was on this basis that he worked out his justifica- 
tion of infant-baptism. The danger of death in 
infancy, still great in our day notwithstanding 



Through Baptismal Regeneration. 77 

the wonderful progress made in recent years in 
preventive medicine, was many times greater 
then. In view of this uncertainty it is not strange 
that Augustine, holding such views as he did 
concerning the religious status of the child, 
should have justified and also advocated the bap- 
tism of infants. It is worthy of serious atten- 
tion that he is the first Christian, so far as the , 
records go, who advocated its administration. 
Others had mentioned it, some had opposed it, 
some had tolerated or even justified it, but no- 
body so far as we know had advocated it. It 
had unquestionably risen, not from the advocacy 
of the clergy but instigated by the fears of the 
parents. 

As belief in the power of baptism to remove 
the guilt and stain of all previous sins grad- 
ually established itself, it exercised two 
natural but contrary tendencies as to the time 
at which baptism should be administered. 
The earliest and at first the most pro- 
nounced tendency v;as to postpone baptism 
till the end of life. The Catholic church had not 
as yet worked out its elaborate system of cere- 
monies for the removal of sins committed after 
baptism, and so it was thought that baptism at 
the end of life was the only certain way which the 
church had for the removal of sin. Moreover, /v 
if one was so inclined he might indulge his pro- 
pensities for sin throughout life and yet rest as- 
sured that all would be w^ell in the end if only he 
postponed baptism until then. Against this ten- 



78 Infant-Baptism. 

dency the fathers of the third and following cen- 
turies protested continually, urging baptism on all 
at conversion or at the end of the usual period of 
catechetical instruction. 

The other tendency due to the rise of belief 
in baptismal regeneration was to push baptism 
back to the very beginning of life, so as to escape 
the awful danger of seeing a child die unbaptized 
and so be eternally lost. The former tendency 
was the deliberate choice of adults for themselves, 
the latter was born of the fears of parents for 
their unconscious infants. Both tendencies are 
the offspring of the same perversion of the sig- 
nificance of baptism and both sprang from the 
people rather than the clergy. The clergy, so far 
as known, never advocated the postponement of 
baptism to the end of life; on the contrary, they 
vigorously and continuously opposed the ten- 
dency; and yet for a long while it threatened to 
establish itself as the usual practice. Infant- 
baptism, as we have seen in the preceding pages, 
was opposed by some of the clergy and some of 
the laity and doubted by many, but the danger 
of death constituted for parents of sickly children 
who believed that baptism was necessary to sal- 
vation, an overwhelming argument. 

Augustine, as we have seen, becomes the first 
active advocate of infant-baptism. And yet even 
he reveals the fact that faith-baptism had been 
the earlier practice and that faith was still felt 
to be required. In arguing that infants are sin- 
ners, he cites the fact that the ritual used in 



Through Baptismal Regeneration. 79 

infant-baptism is the same as that used in admin- 
istering faith-baptism, and that the infant 
(through its parents) is exorcised, confesses its 
sins, renounces the devil and avows its faith. But 
he goes further and squarely recognizes the great 
fundamental evangelical truth that faith is essen- 
tial to baptism and salvation, frequently assert- 
ing that baptized infants must be counted in the 
number of believers and are actually so counted 
by the church (On Forgiveness of Sins and Bap- 
tism, Book I, 38 and often). Of course, when 
he begins to define and describe this infant faith 
he is compelled to juggle with words. He admits 
that the child was unconscious of repentance and 
the various acts ascribed to him by the sponsors, 
but he asserts nevertheless that they are unexperi- 
enced realities in the heart of the child. A few 
quotations will suffice to lay before the reader 
his views, in so far as such confused opinions can 
be set forth. Cornmenting on the words : ^'He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,'^ he 
says : "Now the mystery of this believing in the 
case of infants is completely effected by the re- 
sponses of the sureties by whom they are taken to 
baptism" (On the Soul, etc., Book II, chapter 
17). "By the answer of those through whose 
agency they are born again, the Spirit of right- 
eousness transfers to them that faith which, of 
their own will, they could not yet have" (On 
Forgiveness, etc.. Book III, chapter 2). 'In the 
case of infants, being baptized is to believe, and 
not being baptized is not to beheve" (/&. Book 



so Infant-Baptism, 

I, chapter 40). 'They belong among those who 
have believed; for this is obtained for them by 
virtue of the sacrament and the answer of the 
sponsors. . . . Such as are not baptized are 
reckoned among those who have not beheved'' 
(lb. Book I, chapter 62). 'They are rightly 
called believers, because they in a certain sense 
profess faith by the words of their parents . . . 
renounce the world by the profession again of 
the same parents. The whole of this is done in 
hope, in the strength of the sacrament and the 
divine grace which the Lord has bestowed upon 
the church. But who knows not that the baptized 
infant fails to be benefited from what he receives 
as a little child, if on coming to years of reason 
he fails to believe and to abstain from unlawful 
desires?'' (lb. Book I, chapter 25). Quotations 
to the same effect could be multiplied indefinitely, 
but one more must suffice. In a letter written 
in 408, in reply to a request from Boniface, 
bishop of Rome, for help in the solution of some 
of the more serious problem.s and doubts that had 
arisen in connection with the growing practice of 
infant-baptism, he says : ''Believing is nothing 
else than having faith ; and accordingly, when on 
behalf of an infant as yet incapable of exercising 
faith, the answer is given that he believes, this 
answer means that he has faith because of the 
sacrament of faith, and in like manner the an- 
swer is made that he turns to God because of the 
sacrament of conversion. . . . An infant, al- 
though he is not yet a believer in the sense of 



Through Baptismal Regeneration. gj 

having that faith which includes the consenting 
will of those who exercise it, nevertheless be- 
comes a believer through the sacrament of that 
faith. For as it is answered that he believes, so 
also he is called a believer, not because he assents 
to the truth by an act of his own judgment, but 
because he receives the sacrament of that truth'' 
(Letter XCVIII). 

Augustine frequently acknowledges the exist- 
ence of serious abuses in the practice and reveals 
the existence of opponents. The only scriptural 
authority which he can find is the assertion that 
baptism succeeds circumcision, a conception which 
had been rejected by his great high-church fore- 
runner, Cyprian. He can point to no New Tes- 
tament command or example, and can find no 
historical support earlier than Cyprian, though he 
asserts that it had come down by tradition from 
the apostles. But so powerful was his influence 
that the practice was never again seriously ques- 
tioned in the Catholic church, and now rapidly 
became the accepted theory and practice of that 
body. Boniface, bishop of Rome, was the last 
prominent churchman to question it. For the 
future there were mxany questions connected with 
the practice to be settled, but the practice itself 
is unchallenged within the pale of the Catholic 
church. To oppose it was to put oneself outside 
that church and endanger life itself. 

The subsidiary questions arising in the course 
of the centuries were usually settled in synods of 
the clergy. These meetings began to be held 



82 Infant-Baptism, 

about 150 A.D. Difficulties relating to baptism 
are often treated but infant-baptism is not men- 
tioned in the acts of any synod before that of 
Carthage in 252 A.D., already mentioned in treat- 
ing Cyprian. Constant references in the acts of 
later synods to the baptism of heathens and cate- 
chumens show that faith-baptism was the rule 
till well down in the fifth century. From that 
time onward infant-baptism is a subject of fre- 
quent consideration. The conclusions show steady 
advance in the practice and its demands. These 
will now be noticed. 

A synod, held at Carthage in 418 in which 
some 200 bishops from Spain and from all the 
provinces of North Africa participated, anathe- 
matized any who said that new-born children did 
not need baptism (Hefele, His. of the Councils, 
II, 459). This synod did not enjoin the baptism 
of infants as a duty, but justified it as a practice 
on the ground of child need. It should be noted 
that this, like the former synod in which infant- 
baptism was considered, was held in Africa. 

The first synod held outside of Africa which 
dealt with infant-baptism was held at Gerunda, 
in Spain, June 8, 517. Its position can be seen 
from the fourth and fifth canons : ''Catechumens 
are to be baptized at Easter and Pentecost; only 
to the sick ones may baptism be administered at 
any time. When new-born children are sick, and 
have no appetite for the mother's milk, as is often 
the case, they should be baptized at once, on the 
same day'' (Hefele, IV, 105). This is an illumi- 



Through Baptismal Regeneration, §3 

nating illustration, showing that infant-baptism 
was still the exception in this part of the world 
and that infant mortality was the great argument 
for the practice. 

In the seventh century the clergy began the at- 
tempt to force all society into the Church through 
the now wide-open door of infant-baptism, and as 
a result came the demand that all infants be bap- 
tized under pain of punishment for neglect or 
refusal. The State began to lend its aid to the 
Church in this endeavor, assessing heavy fines on 
the recalcitrant. The first instance of this demand 
that has come down to us is that of King Ina 
of Wessex, in England. A large English synod 
held in 692 decreed as follows : "A child must 
be baptized within thirty days after its birth un- 
der penalty of thirty solidi. Should it die unbap- 
tized it is atoned for with the entire property of 
its parents" (Hefele, III, 349). Similarly, a 
council was held at Paderborn under Charlemagne 
in 785 in which it was determined (canon 19) : 
"Every one must have his child baptized within 
a year under penalty" (Hefele, III, 637). This 
rule was doubtless enforced by the great Frankish 
king all over his vast dominions, for he did not 
hesitate to compel adult Saxons .to be baptized 
on their submission to him. Gradually it became 
the general practice of the Church and of Chris- 
tian government to impose baptism on all infants, 
and faith-baptism almost ceased during two or 
three centuries. 



84 Infant-Baptism. 

The Church soon became conscious of some of 
the evils of infant-baptism; constantly lamenting 
its corruptions, but never once thinking of aban- 
doning the practice. This feature of the history 
is also seen in the acts of several synods. In a 
great reform synod held at Paris at the command 
of the emperor in 829, it was declared (canon 6) : 
''Formerly baptism was administered only to 
such as had already been instructed in the faith. 
Now, since all parents are Christian, it is other- 
wise; but it is a frightful neglect if those who 
were baptized as children are not later thoroughly 
instructed.^' Again, in canon 9, it is said : 'Tt 
is very bad that many who were baptized as chil- 
dren do not later learn the true meaning of bap- 
tism, partly through their own fault, partly 
through the neglect of their pastors" (Hefele, 

IV, 59). 

The baptism of all infants had now become the 
ideal of the Catholic church. If some remained 
unbaptized in nominally Christian lands it was 
due to an oversight or neglect of the priests. Par- 
ents were no longer permitted to determine 
whether their children should be baptized; both 
Church and State demanded it. Religious free- 
dom was denied to both infants and parents. In- 
fant-baptism was now doing its full and legiti- 
mate work. It crushed religious freedom, in- 
troduced the unregenerate into the Church, 
obliterated the distinction between the Church 
and the world, and banished evangelical 
religion and faith-baptism from the earth, 



Through Baptismal Regeneration, §5 

except as they could escape the lynx eyes of 
the Church and State. Its advocates were 
now prepared to fight with fire and sword and 
every other cruelty that fiendish ingenuity could 
invent, every effort to restore evangelical faith 
and the faith-baptism which the Lord com- 
manded. Henceforth for centuries the advocates 
of faith-baptism must be prepared for the suffer- 
ings of the stake. Infant-baptism has ushered in 
the Dark Ages. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE REFORMATION— MARTIN 
LUTHER. 



In the preceding chapter we followed the his- 
tory of infant-baptism to the point where both 
Church and State were enforcing it upon all par- 
ents under penalty. It is not necessary to follow 
,the details of its history in the Catholic church 
during the Middle Ages. Suffice it to say that 
it became almost the sole kind of baptism prac- 
ticed in so-called Christian lands, faith-baptisms 
being very rare and confined almost exclusively 
to the infrequent cases of the conversion of Jews. 
But there remained some consciousness of its 
evils and every effort at reform and revival of 
evangelical faith within the Catholic church 
called forth protests against infant-baptism. 

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the ques- 
tion of its abolition raised very early in the his- 
tory of the mighty movement in the interest of 
evangelical religion known as the Reformation. 
All the great reformers were compelled to face 
the question and take a stand, and it is safe to say 
that this question gave them more trouble than 
any other matter of internal policy. As early as 
1 52 1 some of Luther's followers began to express 
doubts as to the scripturalness and practical re- 

(86) 



Reformation — Martin Luther. §7 

suits of infant-baptism. Many of them discon- 
tinued its administration without, however, at 
once rebaptizing those who had been baptized in 
infancy. 

Luther himself seems to have had little or no 
doubt as to the legitimacy of the practice. What- 
ever he may have thought about it from a scrip- 
tural standpoint, practical considerations would 
have led him to support its continuance firmly. 
It was a sacrament of the Church, deeply 
grounded in the social life and the religious faith 
of the people; it was the basis of the union of 
the Church with the State on whose support he 
was compelled to lean so hard in his struggle 
with the Catholic church; its rejection w^ould 
have divided his forces and comipelled him. to 
rely on the power of the gospel alone. In short, 
its rejection would have wrecked his movement 
by its radical demands. From his viewpoint its 
retention was the only means of preserving unity 
and assuring success. Consequently he made 
short work of the Anabaptists who were jeopard- 
izing the whole movement for reform by raising 
this dangerous question. Disdaining argument, 
he invoked the strong arm of the State for their 
suppression. Moreover, his view of the means 
of grace gave theological support to the im.por- 
tance and continuance of infant-baptism. His en- 
tire system was a strange jumble of evangelical 
and Catholic elements. The center of his theolo- 
gical system was justification by faith, which is 
of course the very foundation of evangelical 



88 Infant-Baptism, 

Christianity; but with the clear and forcible 
enunciation of this principle he combined a con- 
tradictory view of the means of grace. These 
are, according to him, the Word (that is the gos- 
pel message) and the Sacraments (baptism and 
the Supper.) It must not be forgotten that he 
was reared a Catholic, breaking away from that 
church only in middle life and never succeeding 
in gaining complete emancipation. This fact is 
seen m.ost clearly in his view of baptism and the 
Supper which is in both cases very near to that 
of the Catholics. To him the glorified body and 
blood of Christ were as really present in the ele- 
ments of bread and wine as to the Catholic; he 
differed only as to the mode of this presence. In 
like manner he taught the necessity of baptism 
as the divinely appointed means of regeneration 
as firmly as the Catholics themselves. He held 
that baptism is zvater with the word, the bath of 
regeneration, and absolutely necessary to salva- 
tion. This view of the necessity and efficacy of 
baptism was the basis for infant-baptism for him 
as it was for the Catholics. He strove to har- 
monize it with his great evangelical principle of 
justification by faith, but of course without suc- 
cess. The two principles are incompatible and ir- 
reconcilable. In his earlier years he seemed in- 
clined to insist that unconscious infants when bap- 
tized had an unconscious faith, that baptism sup- 
plied faith, as Augustine had contended, or that 
the faith of the parents or of the Church was ac- 
cepted in a vicarious way. And he apparently 



Reformation — Martin Luther, 39 

never gave up the conviction that faith must be 
and is in some sense actually present in every bap- 
tized and saved person. But in his later life he 
showed some inclination to give up this juggling 
with words and admit frankly that faith is not nec- 
essary to salvation, thus falling back into the 
blank opus operatiim view of the Catholic church. 
A few quotations from the more important 
Lutheran documents will make his views plain. 
In the ^'Shorter Catechism'^ composed by Luther 
in 1529, the most widely used means of religious 
instruction for children, it is said that baptism 
' 'effects the remission of sins, frees us from death 
and the devil, and gives blessedness everlasting 
to those W'ho believe what the word and the prom- 
ise of God declare.'' Faith of some kind is im- 
plied in this quotation and in all that is said in 
this catechism about baptism. In the ''Greater 
Catechism,'' also composed in 1529 and designed 
for the instruction of the preachers, Luther says : 
"The whole force, w^ork, necessity, fruit and end 
of baptism is to confer salvation . . . for 
through the Word it (the water) receives the 
power to become a washing of regeneration. . . . 
Nothing works in us but faith, but . . . faith 
must have something to believe, that is, to which 
it can cling, on which it can stand and rest. So 
faith clings to the w^ater, and believes that bap- 
tism confers salvation and life, not through the 
water, but because it embodies God's Word and 
command, and because his name is attached to it. 
. . . Faith alone makes the person worthy 



90 Infant-Baptism, 

usefully to receive the wholesome and holy water. 
. . . It cannot be received unless we believe 
it from our hearts. It will avail us nothing with- 
out faith" (Luther's Primary Works, pp. I33f). 
Such views would seem to render infant-bap- 
tism utterly out of the question; but not so. 
Luther is equal to the task of justifying infant- 
baptism on such a basis as this. He begins his 
discussion of the subject with this vigorous lan- 
guage : ''There arises now a question with which 
the devil and his sects would confound the world : 
the question of the baptism of infants whether 
they can have faith and be properly baptized.'' 
He advises the "simple" to cast the question aside 
and leave it to those who are acquainted with 
the subject. He then argues (i) that infant- 
baptism must be pleasing to Christ who has hon- 
ored and blessed so many that were baptized in 
infancy; (2) ''that it is not of the utmost im- 
portance whether he who is baptized has faith 
or not, for this will not make the baptism wrong; 
everything depends on God's Word and com- 
mand;" (3) "We bring the child in the belief 
and hope that it has faith, and pray God to give 
it faith ; but we do not baptize it on this account, 
but solely because God has commanded it. . . . 
It is only foolish and presumptuous persons who 
argue and infer that, where there is no faith, the 
baptism cannot be right" (Primary Works, p. 
I38ff). Could anything illustrate the incom- 
patibility of infant-baptism with the fundamental 
Lutheran tenet of justification by faith more 



Reformation — Martin Luther, 91 

clearly and forcefully than these quotations, all 
taken from the ''Greater Catechism''? 

The Augsburg Confession was drawn up, 
chiefly by Melanchthon, in 1530, and presented by 
the Lutheran princes to the emperor and Diet 
at Augsburg as the explanation and justification 
of their views and actions. It has ever since been 
regarded as the foundation statement of Luth- 
eran doctrine and practice. The article on bap- 
tism is brief and inconclusive, since that was not 
one of the subjects in dispute between Catholics 
and Lutherans. It is said that baptism ''is nec- 
essary to salvation, and that by baptism the grace 
of God is offered, and that children are to be bap- 
tized, who by baptism, being offered to God, are 
received into God's favor. They condemn the 
Anabaptists who allow not the baptism of chil- 
dren, and affirm that children are saved without 
baptism." 

These quotations will suffice to show how con- 
fused Luther was in his arguments for infant- 
baptism, notwithstanding the clearness and vigor 
with which he insisted on its practice. He held 
that there was no salvation apart from faith, but 
that baptism was necessary to salvation, and that 
infants w^ere to be baptized. As to how these 
statements are to be reconciled he was in the fog. 
They are irreconcilable. Infant-baptism is not 
and cannot be a faith-baptism. It is a non-faith, 
involuntary and magical baptism in the usage of 
Luther equally as much as in that of the Cath- 
olics. 



,4 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE REFORMATION— ZWINGLI AND 
CALVIN. 



The second great character of the Reforma- 
tion was Huldreich ZwingH, the reformer of Ger- 
man-speaking Switzerland. His views were 
reached independently of Luther in the course 
of his regular ministrations as pastor of the most 
important church in Zurich. In general he took 
a more biblical position than Luther, and his re- 
form was in many respects far more radical than 
that of Luther. This was especially true of his 
views of baptism and the Supper. Much more con- 
sistently than Luther he held that justification is 
by faith and faith alone, and that all ceremonies as 
means of grace were abolished by Christ. To him 
the ordinances were only outward symbols of an 
inward grace, and had value for the spiritual life 
only as the inward meaning was apprehended 
through the outward symbolic act. This view 
would seem to make infant-baptism meaningless 
and even absurd. But he continued it while he 
was compelled to take a new position as to its 
significance and strike out a new line of argu- 
ment in its support. It can be said with confi- 
dence, sustained by historical investigation, that 
Zwingli w^as the first writer in Christian history 
to advocate infant-baptism on other grounds than 

(92) 



Reformation — Zwingli and Calvin. 93 

its magical working on the infant. The Pelagians 
had said that it was necessary to introduce chil- 
dren into the kingdom, though it was not neces- 
sary to their salvation. All others down to 
Zwingli's day had held that it was necessary to 
salvation. Zwingli was in great doubt as to its 
retention for a time, and many of his followers 
believed that he was on the point of abandoning 
the practice altogether, as many of them did. But 
after a period of vacillation and uncertainty, ap- 
parently led by practical considerations relating 
to the reform movement, he decided to retain and 
defend the practice on the new basis made neces- 
sary by his general position as to the significance 
of the sacraments to which he denied saving 
efficacy. 

Of baptism he said : ''If the sacrament had 
been able to remove sin, Christ would not have 
been obliged to come in the flesh, but would have 
needed only to institute the sacrament.'^ He is 
conscious that in this matter he ''thinks differently 
from any other ancient or modern writer.'^ Be- 
ing unable with these views to defend infant- 
baptisrii on the old ground that it effected salva- 
tion he adopted as his line of defense the /A 
position that baptism succeeded circumcision 
and is therefore to be administered to Chris- 
tian children on the same ground as cir- 
cumcision was administered to Jewish children. 
It had its value, he held, in the fact that it is an 
act of consecration on the part of the parents, 
an act of obedience to divine command. Just as 



94 Infant-Baptism. 

Abraham and the Jews circumcised their children, 
thereby incorporating them into the covenant of 
grace with the people of God; so Christian par- 
ents are to baptize their children, who are as much 
children of God as themselves, thereby incorpo- 
rating them into the covenant of Christian grace 
among the people of God. The covenant is ex- 
actly the same in both the old and the new dis- 
pensations ; only the signs of the covenants differ. 
Christians, as a sort of race, succeed to the 
Jews as the people of God, and baptism succeeds 
to circumcision as the sign of that relation. As 
a result of these views the contention is advanced 
for the first time in Christian history that only 
the children of Christian parents are to be bap- 
tized. This fact shows how completely the 
ground for the defense of infant-baptism has been 
changed, and also how exactly in the mind of 
Zwingli the old covenant is perpetuated in Chris- 
tianity. 

Baptism, according to him, introduced infants 
into the outer church only, not into the true spir- 
itual church of the redeemed. That could be ac- 
complished only by the exercise of personal faith 
when the child came to years. He thus intro- 
duced a sort of double church membership, a 
quasi membership for children who had not 
reached maturity, and a real, full membership for 
those who had been converted. Nothing like this 
had hitherto existed in Christian history. 

Unlike the other reformers, Zwingli was 
strongly inclined to believe that all infants dying 



Reformation — Zwingli and Calvin. 95 

in infancy were of the elect and therefore saved ' 
without baptism. This view introduced further 
confusion into his doctrine of infant-baptism and 
weakened the sense of its need. Nevertheless, 
he maintained that it had much practical value in 
impressing upon parents their religious obliga- 
tions to their children and upon pastors their ob- 
ligations to the children of their parishes. Zwin- 
gli thus finally brought himself, after consider- 
able struggle, to believe that infant-baptism was 
not anti-scriptural and hurtful but scriptural and 
of material practical value. However, he was 
never bold enough to claim, as some of its mod-/^' 
ern advocates do, that he could cite any scrip- 
tural command for or example of infant-baptism. 
His views can be seen from this quotation taken 
from his "Refutation of Anabaptist Tricks" (page 
236), wdiere he says: ''As the Hebrews' chil- 
dren, because they with their parents were un- 
der the covenant, m.erited the sign of the cove- 
nant, so also Christians' infants, because they are 
covenanted within the church and people of 
Christ, ought in no way to be deprived of bap- 
tism, the sign of the covenant" (Jackson, Selec- 
tions, etc.). 

Zwingli is an important character in the his- 
tory of infant-baptism. Before him it had, with 
slight modifications by the Pelagians, always '^ 
been regarded as possessing magical saving 
power, effecting the regeneration and salvation 
of the morally unconscious infant. This view is 
utterly subversive of evangelical Christianity as 



96 Infant-Baptism. 

is obvious on a moment's consideration, and as is 
also shown by the history of the bodies that hold 
this position. ZwingH stripped infant-baptism of 
its magical power, insisting that the child is not 
regenerated by baptism, but must be converted 
through the exercise of saving faith in future 
years, its relation to the Church being exceptional 
until that time. Moreover, he greatly limited its 
application by insisting that only the children of 
Christian parents are to be baptized. He thus 
laid the foundation for a church of converted 
members with the retention of infant-baptism as 
a sort of dedicatory service. In his hands infant- 
baptism became something totally different from 
anything it had ever before been. It was now 
little more than a ceremony of dedication, with- 
out any effect on the child except as it was sup- 
posed to secure for him more careful religious 
training by parents and pastors. Evangelical 
pedobaptists owe him a debt of gratitude of in- 
calculable greatness. He took a ceremony that 
had grown up as an integral part of the Catholic 
system, still the vehicle of the very essence of that 
system, and so modified it that it could be re- 
tained without utterly subverting the evangelical 
principle. 

Calvin. 

John Calvin, the founder of the Calvinistic ''Re- 
formed" and Presbyterian churches of the world, 
was the third great character of the Reformation. 
His views of baptism and the Supper are very 
difficult to comprehend, but in general it may be 



Reformation — Ztvingli and Calvin. 97 

said that he held a position between those of 
Luther and Zwingh. He beheved that baptism 
promoted our faith toward God and testified our 
faith before men. It was ''to be received as from 
the hand of the Author himself/' and when so re- 
ceived it promoted faith in three ways : ( i ) It 
served as a seal and assurance that ''all our sins 
are cancelled, effaced and obliterated, so that they 
will never appear in his sight, or come into his 
remembrance, or be imputed to us." (2) It "is 
the certain testimony'' "that we are not only in- 
grafted into the life and death of Christ, but are 
so united as to be partakers of all his benefits.'' 
(3) "It shows us our mortification in Christ, and 
our new life in him." Baptism does not confer 
these great blessings, but it is God's method of 
assuring us that he has conferred them as a re- 
sult of our faith. It is a "seal, not to give effi- 
acy to the promise of God as if it wanted validity 
in itself, but only to confirm it to us." But "bap- 
tism also serves for our confession before men. 
For it is a mark by which we openly profess our 
desire to be numbered among the people of God, 
by which we testify our agreement with all Chris- 
tians in the worship of one God, and in one reli- 
gion, and by which we make a public declaration 
of our faith." However, it must never be for- 
gotten that in baptism "we obtain nothing except 
what we receive by faith. If faith is wanting, it 
will be a testimony of our ingratitude, to render 
us guilty before God, because we have not be- 
lieved the promise given in the sacrament." 
7 



98 Infant-Baptism. 

These are his general views on baptism as 
stated in his chapter on baptism in the Institutes 
(Book IV, chapter XV). No advocate of faith- 
s' baptism could state the necessity of faith more 
clearly and strongly. Beyond controversy these 
principles, fairly interpreted, nullified infant-bap- 
tism, because the infant at the time of its baptism 
has and can have no faith. The faith of the in- 
fant is neither promoted toward God nor con- 
fessed before men in baptism, for the very simple 
and sufficient reason that it can have no faith, as 
Calvin himself admits. The most that he can say 
is that the faith of the child, if in future years 
it shall exercise faith, will be promoted toward 
God and confessed before men by the baptism 
that it received in unconsciousness, when it had 
no faith. This is curious reasoning. Let it be 
repeated that Calvin's principles logically abolish 
infant-baptism. 

And yet Calvin seems never to have been in 
doubt about the scripturalness and propriety of 
infant-baptism. Like Zwingli, he denied that in- 
fants are regenerated in baptism or that baptism 
is necessary to the salvation of elect infants dying 
in infancy. 'Tnfants are not excluded from the 
kingdom of heaven who happen to die before 
they have had the privilege of baptism.'' On this 
ground he opposed private baptism and its ad- 
ministration by laymen or women. Like Zwin- 
gli, also, he based his main defense of infant- 
baptism on the claim that it succeeded to cir- 
cumcision. This argument he buttressed by the 



Reformation — Zwingli and Calvin. 99 

fact that Jesus said : ''Suffer the little children 
to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such 
is the kingdom of heaven/' Only the children of 
believing parents are thus to be baptized; they 
''thus are received into the Church by a solemn 
sign, because they already belonged to the body 
of Christ by virtue of the promise." 

His chapter on infant-baptism is long and la- 
bored (Institutes, Book IV, chapter XVI). The 
genius of Calvin was not equal to the task of har- 
monizing this practice with the fundamental prin- 
ciples which he had laid down in the preceding 
chapter. He admits, of course, that there is no 
mention of infant-baptism in the Scriptures nor 
any express command to administer it. However, 
he believes it benefits the parents by giving them 
the assurance that their children are the heirs of 
the promises and the objects of God's grace, while 
the children are benefited by being brought into 
closer relations with the Church. In their matur- 
ity, he claimed, this baptism acted as a powerful 
stimulus to piety ; it is a baptism "into future re- 
pentance and faith.'' "They will hence be the 
more inflamed to the pursuit of that renovation, 
with the token of which they find themselves to 
have been favored in their earliest infancy." In- 
fant-baptism was essential to the system of state 
church to which Calvin clung, and hence it was 
retained, notwithstanding its subversion of the 
fundamental views of baptism which he held and 
stated with such clearness in other connections. 



CHAPTER X. 



REFORMATION AND REVIVAL IN 
ENGLAND. 



In England the Reformation was never so 
thorough and radical as on the continent. More- 
over, the earliest reformatory influence was 
Lutheran. Hence, the English state church was 
less removed from the position of the Catholics 
in its view of the sacraments than the other Prot- 
estant bodies. It held firmly to the position that 
baptism is the sacrament of regeneration, and 
necessary to salvation. The article on baptism in 
the XXXIX Articles states that baptism is "a 
sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby as by 
an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly 
are grafted into the church ; the promises of the 
forgiveness of sin, and our adoption to be the 
sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed 
and sealed; faith is confirmed, and grace in- 
creased by virtue of prayer unto God." This 
confession was drawn up under Calvinistic in- 
fluence and is not so clearly in favor of baptismal 
regeneration as the Prayer-Book which is far 
more Catholic in its implications of doctrine. In 
the ritual of baptism it is steadily assumed that 
regeneration is efifected by baptism. After the 
baptismal service the priest is made to say : 'We 
yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, 

(100) 



Reformation in England. IQl 

that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this in- 
fant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thy 
own child by adoption, and to incorporate him 
into thy holy congregation/' 

There is no assumption that the child has faith 
as in the case of the Lutherans. And yet the rit- 
ual which is used was produced for the baptism 
of believers and assumes the existence of faith in 
the recipient of baptism. The infant is asked : 
''Dost thou forsake the devil and all his works?" 
and the godparents answer in the name of the 
child : 'T forsake them all." ''Dost thou believe 
in God the Father almighty, etc. ?" The godpar- 
ents answer: "All this I steadfastly beheve." 
And so on throughout the service. Faith is every-// 
where implied. 

In the Anglican Catechism the child is asked : 
"What is required of persons to be baptized?" 
Answer : "Repentance, whereby they forsake sin ; 
and faith, whereby they steadfastly believe the 
promises of God made to them in the sacrament." 
Ques. : "Why, then, are infants baptized, when by 
reason of their tender age they cannot perform 
them?" Ans. : "Because they promise them both 
by their sureties ; which promise, when they come 
to age, themselves are bound to perform." 

These quotations are sufficient to show that the 
ritual used for infant-baptism by this church, even 
down to the present time, v/as wrought out for 
the administration of faith-baptism. It is incon- 
sistent with the condition of the infant and puts 
baptism on a wholly artificial basis. Nothing per- 



102 Infant-Baptism, 

haps shows more convincingly that the early 
Church practiced faith-baptism than the old 
liturgies of baptism, all of which presuppose gen- 
uine repentance and faith. 

While the Anglican church is thus committed 
to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as the 
basis for the practice of infant-baptism, it was far 
otherwise with the English and American Con- 
gregationalists. Calvinism under the name of 
Puritanism made a deep impression on English 
Christianity during the latter half of the six- 
teenth century. Out of this party came the Con- 
gregationalists. Convinced that the reform of 
the English church was hopeless, Robert Browne, 
the founder of Congregationalism, decided to 
leave it altogether, abandon the ideal of a state 
church which should include within its folds all 
Englishmen, and set up an independent body com- 
posed of believers only. These were to be bound 
together by the voluntary acceptance of a cove- 
nant. He thus revived in England the idea 
that the church is not coterminous with society 
but is a distinct body within the social order, 
into which the individual enters voluntarily 
by the conscious and express acceptance of 
the ideals and duties agreed upon by the body. 
This meant, of course, the complete separa- 
tion of Church and State and the exclusion 
of the idea of infant church membership of 
even a quasi nature. The supposed necessity 
for perpetuating the union between Church 
and State had undoubtedly been one of the deci- 



Reformation in England. 103 

sive factors in the retention of infant-baptism by 
the Reformers, and now this union was declared 
to be bad and only bad by Browne. Could he 
retain infant-baptism? Well, he did, but was 
compelled to modify further its significance and 
defense. He did not regard the ceremony as a^ 
having any saving significance, nor did he as- 
sume any faith in the child. It now becomes 
solely a dedicatory service in which the child is 
dedicated to God and the church. It is no longer 
based on natural descent, as in Calvinism, or on 
Christian parentage, as with Zwingli, but on the 
basis of legal control over and moral and religious 
responsibility for the child. Consequently it is 
not to be limited to the children of Christian par- 
ents, but is to be extended to these and to all 
others who are under the control of Christian 
men and women, such as servants and wards. 
The Christian man is obligated to dedicate to 
God by baptism all children for whom he is re- 
sponsible. 

Browne says : 'The children of the faith- 
ful, though they be infants, are to be ofifered 
to God and the Church, that they may be bap- 
tized. Also those infants or children which are 
of the household of the faithful, and under their 
full power.'' And in the Confession of 1596 it is 
said ''that such as be of the seed, or under the 
government of any of the Church, be even in their 
infancy received to baptism, and made partakers 
of the sign of God's covenant made with the faith- 
ful and their seed throughout all generations." 
Thus Browne and his followers laid the founda- 



104 Infant-Baptism. 

tion for the retention of infant-baptism in a coun- 
try where there is rehgious freedom under the 
voluntary system as in the United States. He is 
an important figure in the history of infant-bap- 
tism in that he reHeved it of one more of the 
evils that had clung to it from the start and made 
it somewhat more consonant with evangelical 
Christianity. This has been the chief line of de- 
velopment among evangelical pedobaptists from 
that time to the present hour. They owe their 
ability to preserve infant-baptism along with 
evangeHcal Christianity principally to Zwingli 
and Browne. 

It might have been expected that the great 
evangelical revival of the eighteenth century, 
would, on account of its strong emphasis on con- 
version and religious experience, have abandoned 
infant-baptism altogether, which, as we have seen, 
is historically and logically inconsistent with this 
view of the Christian religion. And it did re- 
sult in a tremendous growth of anti-pedobaptist 
sentiment as we shall see later. But the organized 
revival under the leadership of the Wesleys clung 
to infant-baptism. The failure of Wesley to 
break with this practice, which was so alien to 
his fundamental ideas, was doubtless due to the 
influence which the English church exercised over 
him in this as in other respects. His father was 
a rector in that church, and John strove to re- 
main a consistent member of the body till his 
death. He organized his converts into "socie- 
ties" (not "churches") within the English church 
and apparently never intended to organize a sepa- 



Reformation in England, 105 

rate ''church/' His liturgy and creed were only 
modifications of those used by the English 
church. In fact, while his evangelical warmth 
came from the Moravians and his organization 
was the product of his own genius acting amid 
the exigencies of the situation, his ecclesiastical 
views remained to the end of his life predomi- 
nantly Anglican. It is not particularly surpris- 
ing, therefore, to find him, along with his power- 
ful emphasis on religious experience, retaining 
infant-baptism because of its ecclesiastical sig- 
nificance. 

In his ''Treatise on Baptism," written in 1756, 
he maintains that infants are to be baptized on 
the following grounds : ( i ) Infants are stained 
with original sin, and are "children of wrath, 
and liable to eternal damnation;''' therefore, "in- 
fants need to be washed from original sin," "see- 
ing in the ordinary way, they cannot be saved 
unless this be washed away by baptism." Bap- 
tism is not held to be absolutely the only way an 
infant can be saved, as the Catholics and most 
Anglicans held, but it is regarded by him as the 
"ordinary" way to which we (though not God) 
are bound. He holds that this view "is agreeable 
to the unanimous judgment of the ancient fa- 
thers." (2) "By baptism we enter into covenant 
with God; into that everlasting covenant, which 
he hath commanded forever." Just as circumcision 
was the seal of the covenant with Abraham and 
was administered to children, so baptism is the 
seal of the same covenant now and is therefore 
to be administered to children. The covenant was 



106 Infant-Baptism. 

exactly the same under the two dispensations, an 
everlasting covenant, only the form of the seal 
being different. (3) ''By baptism we are ad- 
mitted into the church, and consequently made 
members of Christ, its head/' Infants ought to 
come to Christ (Matt. 19: I3f), ''but they cannot 
now com.e to him, unless by being brought into 
the church; which cannot be but by baptism." 
''Even under the Old Testament they v/ere ad- 
mitted into it by circumcision. And can we sup- 
pose they are in a worse condition under the 
gospel, than they were under the law?" (4) 
"The apostles baptized infants ;" this was argued 
from the alleged practice of the Jews who, it was 
claimed, both circumcised and baptized the in- 
fants of proselytes. (5) "To baptize infants has 
been the general practice of the Christian church, 
in all places and in all ages." 

True to the confused nature of the Anglican 
church and the diverse origins of the various ele- 
ments of the Methodist movement, Wesley here 
jumbles together reasons which are incompati- 
ble with each other and makes the absurd state- 
^^ ment that the Christian church had universally 
practiced infant-baptism. Fortunately for the 
world his religious experience was far better than 
his Anglican traditions and his knowledge of 
Christian history, so that both he and his follow- 
ers relegated infant-baptism to a relatively un- 
important place in the plan of salvation and con- 
tinued to preach evangelical religion with clear- 
ness and power notwithstanding their retention of 
infant-baptism. 



Reformation in England. 107 

While the Protestants were thus seeking to 
defend and explain the old Catholic practice of in- 
fant-baptism so that it would not nullify their 
doctrines of "the sole authority of Scripture" and 
"justification by faith alone/' the two great Cath- 
olic churches continued to hold firmly and con- 
sistently to the practice of infant-baptism on the 
old original ground that it was necessary to sal- 
vation and that unconscious infants were regen- 
erated in the act. At the Council of Trent in 
1545 it was decreed for the Roman Catholic 
church (Canon V, on Baptism) : "If any saith 
that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto 
salvation: let him be anathema/' 

The Greek Catholic church expressed its faith 
in "The Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and 
Apostolic Eastern Church" in 1643. ^^ Qsestio 
cm, on the nature and fruit of baptism, it is said 
that it "abolishes all sins, in infants original sin, 
in adults both that and voluntary sin." 

This hurried sketch of infant-baptism in the 
period of the Reformation and the two subsequent 
centuries, will suffice to show the various ways 
in which the majority of those who broke away 
from the Catholic church endeavored to justify 
and explain this Catholic practice which they re- 
tained. Some of them gave it a different sig-J 
nificance and invented new arguments in its sup-^ 
port, but could not see their way to abandon it, 
notwithstanding the great embarrassment it 
caused them. It had become too firmly rooted in 
the social, political and religious life of Europe 



108 Infant-Baptism. 

to be abolished by the reHgious cataclysm of the 
Reformation, the most tremendous effort for the 
recovery of evangelical religion since its gradual 
obscuration in the early centuries of the Chris- 
tian era. Whole nations deserted the Catholic 
: church while they preserved this Catholic prac- 
f ' tice ; great theologians sought by analogy and in- 
ference to defend it from the silent pages of 
Scripture and harmonize it with the evangelical 
principles which they preached ; the civil arm was 
called in to enforce the baptism of infants and to 
burn, drown and destroy the simple people whose 
piety could find no place for this practice. It is 
a pitiable picture; but its abandonment would 
have wrecked the idea of national churches, would 
have automatically worked a separation of Church 
and State, would have emancipated the individual 
from servitude to the institution, would have es- 
tablished religious freedom with a cessation of 
bloody persecutions, and would have placed evan- 
gelical religion on a sure and permanent founda- 
tion. The Protestant principles legitimately in- 
volve these precious fruits, but they were nega- 
tived by the retention of infant-baptism. Pro- 
testants preserved the union between Church and 
State even as the Catholics, with only slight varia- 
tions as to ideals; they persecuted only less bit- 
terly than the Catholics. Not a single pedobap- 
tist communion of the sixteenth century is free 
from the blood of Christian martyrs. The oppo- 
nents of infant-baptism were cast out as evil and 
paid for their faithfulness to conscience with their 
blood. 



CHAPTER XI. 



GROWTH OF ANTI-PEDOBAPTIST 
SENTIMENT. 



It seems probable that opposition to infant- 
baptism had never entirely ceased since the be- 
ginning of the practice at the end of the second 
century. Individuals who opposed infant-bap- 
tism as repugnant to Scripture and the funda- 
mentals of the gospel, appeared at intervals 
throughout Christian history and attained suffi- 
cient promiinence to leave some mark on Christian 
literature. Besides these more prominent and sig- 
nificant opponents of pedobaptism there must have 
been many simpler people who, under the influ- 
ence of their experience of grace and such knowl- 
edge of the Scripture as they could obtain, quietly 
neglected the practice or openly opposed it with- 
out arousing sufiicient ecclesiastical controversy 
to leave any marks in the literature of the time. 
But whatever may be the facts as to the existence 
of opposition to this practice in the darkest period 
of the Middle A_ges it is a fact beyond the possi- 
bility of contradiction that determined opposition 
reappears as soon as the great revival of reli- 
gion and culture begins and the Bible is once 
more in the language of the people. For cen- 
turies during the Middle Ages the Bible was 

(109) 



110 Infant-Baptism, 

almost unknown to the masses of the people of 
Western Europe. In the early centuries it had 
been loved and trusted and had been translated 
into the languages of the peoples among whom 
Christianity spread. It was thus found in en- 
tirety or in part in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic 
and Gothic by the end of the fourth century. But 
as the Christian world drifted away from its scrip- 
tural moorings and the idea of ecclesiastical au- 
thority replaced that of the Bible, the Book fell 
into disuse and finally into disfavor as a book to 
be entrusted to the people. At the same time the 
old Grseco-Roman culture was rapidly dying out 
and leaving Western Europe in almost total 
intellectual darkness. The Goths were amalga- 
mated with the earlier inhabitants of southwest- 
ern Europe and their language disappeared. 
Spoken Latin gradually changed into Italian, 
French, Spanish and Portuguese till the old Latin 
into which the Bible had been translated was no 
longer understood by the masses of the people. 
No new translations were made for several cen- 
turies after the days of Jerome, leaving the Bible 
securely locked in the vaults of a dead language 
which could be opened only by the learned 
Thus through fear of its effects and the ignorance 
of the people the Bible was practically taken away 
from them. The Church was left to continue its 
drift even more rapidly and to work its utmost 
effects on the people who were now wholly de- 
pendent on it for their religious instruction with- 
out possessing any standard by which they could 



Anti-Pedohaptist Sentiment. HJ 

test or check its teachings or practices. The Bible 
has always been the bulwark of faith-baptism, and 
it is not strano-e, therefore, that we hear little of . 
faith-baptism while the Bible is so nearly an un- 
known book. 

But as the terrible German tribes whose bar- 
barism had done so much to bring on the Dark 
Ages settled down and established some political 
and social organization, culture began to revive 
on the old classical soil and the Germans them- 
selves began to accept the culture and religion of 
their dependents. Vincti victores again. One of 
the first things which this new culture undertook 
was the translation of the Scriptures. Parts were 
put into the Gothic in the fourth century and into 
Anglo-Saxon as early as the eighth century. The 
work of translating continued at intervals until 
the Bible in whole or in part existed in most of 
the languages of Western Europe even before the 
Reformation. Its circulation was very limited, 
however, and its influence not great. 

The great revival which began in Western 
Europe in the eleventh century almost immedi- 
ately produced sects in opposition to more or less 
of the doctrines and practices of the Catholic 
church. Among other things several of them op- 
posed infant-baptism. This was true of some of 
the Waldenses, at least in the earlier years of 
their history. Likewise many of the Petrobru- 
sians and Henricans were determined opponents 
and suffered for their convictions. But the Cath- 
olic church was able to suppress these movements 



112 Infant-Baptism, 

in large measure before the Reformation through 
the use of the Inquisition and the power of the 
civil arm. Anti-pedobaptism was largely de- 
stroyed at the stake. 

With the revival of culture and the translation 
of the Scriptures in the fifteenth century there 
came a revival of religion, and these forces soon 
developed opposition to infant-baptism. We have 
already seen these sentiments among several of 
the more evangelical sects of the later Middle 
Ages. It did not, however, become sufficiently 
prominent in their systems to dominate and give 
name to them. Nevertheless it was the beginning 
in modern times of the serious and successful 
opposition to pedobaptism which has continued to 
grow with the growth of religious freedom, cul- 
ture, Bible knowledge and^ evangelical activity 
down to the present hour. \ Faith-baptism is not 
a baptism of the darkness and ignorance of the 
Middle Ages, but of the light and freedom of Bi- 
ble days and modern times. The period of tri- 
umph for infant-baptism was the depths of the 
Middle Ages when thick darkness covered the 
peoples, liberty was gone and the Bible was an 
almost unknown book. With the return of light 
anti-pedobaptism revived and has continued to 
grow. These indisputable facts are very gratify- 
ing to anti-pedobaptists, stimulating the hope that 
evangelical pedobaptists will all finally abandon 
this anti-evangelical, Catholic practice, and re- 
store faith-baptism as the Lord and his apostles 
commanded it. 



Anti-Pedobaptist Sentiment. 113 

The Reformation was accompanied by a 
great outburst of anti-pedobaptist sentiment which 
all the churches were unable to suppress. This 
great religious revival seemed to call it forth 
simultaneously at several points in Europe, while 
the earliest centers were naturally Wittenberg and 
Zurich where Luther and Zwingli worked. 
Around these two great leaders and among their 
followers powerful anti-pedobaptist movements 
quickly developed. At Wittenberg two of the pro- 
fessors in the University in which Luther was 
himself a professor embraced these views and 
were driven from their positions ; a good many 
pastors and thousands upon thousands of the 
German people lost faith in infant-baptism and 
advocated its abandonment. Luther and other 
leaders proceeded to the most energetic measures 
and finally called in the civil arm to suppress the 
(to them) dangerous movement. Tens of thou- 
sands of anti-pedobaptists perished in Germany 
during the ten years from 1525 to 1535. In Ger- 
many the movement was largely suppressed. 

Around Zwingli and among his friends and 
supporters in Switzerland and South Germany 
there developed an even stronger anti-pedobaptist 
movement. Scholars and university-bred men 
like Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, Ludwig Hatzer, 
John Denck and Balthaser Hubmaier, priests and 
monks and a great host of the laity, renounced the 
baptism they had received in their infancy and 
obtained a faith-baptism. They made an excel- 
lent translation of the Prophets from the Hebrew 

8 



114 Infant-Baptism. 

into the German ; they organized churches on the 
basis of faith-baptism and established a very ac- 
tive itinerant ministry for the propagation of their 
views. The movement began its separate organ- 
ized existence the latter part of 1524 and spread 
swiftly to all those parts of Germany, Switzer- 
land, Austria and the Netherlands in which the 
Reformation had been accepted. Even the far- 
away Scandinavian countries and a little later 
England and Scotland felt the impact of the 
movement. So powerful was it for a few years 
that almost every Reformer of any prominence or 
ability entered the theological lists against these 
advocates of faith-baptism whom they dubbed 
Anabaptists or Wiedertaufer, that is, rebaptizers. 
A flood of polemical pamphlets poured from the 
presses of Germany, Switzerland and the Nether- 
lands and all the great Confessions of Faith 
drawn up in this period condemn Anabaptism ex- 
pressly or by direct implication. Soon civil gov- 
ernments were induced to intervene in an effort 
to suppress the movement by force; thousands 
suffered martyrdom by fire, sword and drown- 
ing, and thousands more were left to rot and die 
in the noisome prisons of that time. Thus the 
most promising anti-pedobaptist movement since 
the appearance of infant-baptism was virtually 
extinguished in blood. Anabaptists continued to 
exist, it is true, hidden away in the remote vil- 
lages of various lands ; but the world had been so 
bitterly prejudiced against them as to condemn 
their message unheard ; moreover the sufferings 



Anti-Pedohaptist Sentiment. 115 

through which they had passed had shorn them of 
their leaders and their power. They lost their 
aggressive spirit; retired into the safety of ob- 
scurity and inactivity and ceased to be of any 
force in the world. They never entirely disap- 
peared from Switzerland and the Netherlands, 
but they dwindled into a small sect that was tol- 
erated because of its insignificance. 

And what were the views of this sect which 
was so much hated and feared by both State and 
Church? Religiously they were striving for the 
freedom and autonomy of the individual soul and 
the purity and spiritual power of each individual 
church, — a church of redeemed people, saints, liv- 
ing holy lives, and associated together by their 
own choice, on the basis of a common faith, for 
the spread and establishment of the kingdom of 
God. The symbol and seal of these spiritual treas- 
ures v/as faith-baptism, accepted freely by each 
soul as a testimonial of its own faith and its own 
self-consecration to the cause of Christ. They 
opposed infant-baptism as the invention of men, f^ 
a perversion of Scripture, the bulwark of Anti- 
Christ, the chief cornerstone of the papacy with all 
its errors, a necessary link in the union of Church 
and State, the foundation principle in religious 
persecutions and the nullification of evangelical 
Christianity. They argued against it chiefly from 
Scripture, not only denying the existence of bibli- 
cal precept or example for the practice, but also 
asserting that it contravened essential scriptural 
principles. Around infant-baptism the whole con- 



116 Infant-Baptism. 

troversy raged ; but behind the baptismal contro- 
versy lay deeper things which gave to the con- 
troversy its signficance. The nature of the Chris- 
tian religion itself and the relation of the Church 
to the individual soul and to all society were in- 
volved; the freedom of the soul was at stake. 

In addition to their religious views the Anabap- 
tists advocated certain social, political and econo- 
mic doctrines which were regarded as danger- 
ous to the whole social order. They admitted that 
the State was ordained of God, but held that it 
was a necessary evil organized because of the sin- 
fulness of man. For this and other reasons they 
denied that any Christian man could hold civil 
office ; they refused to take the oath for any pur- 
pose; they opposed war and refused to pay war 
taxes or bear arms ; they objected to capital pun- 
ishment and did not allow their members to en- 
gage in the liquor business ; some of them advo- 
cated community of goods and opposed the lend- 
ing of money on interest. They denied to the 
State the power to punish any but civil offenses, 
reserving for church discipline, which they ad- 
ministered very strictly, all purely moral and re- 
ligious oft'enses. They contended that the Church 
should have complete autonomy in all religious 
matters and that the State has no religious duties, 
it being in their conception a purely secular body. 
The State should neither support nor control the 
Church. In a word, they advocated religious free- 
dom in every sense of the word. They struggled 
to introduce the voluntary system as the most 



Anti-Pedohaptist Sentiment, 117 

advanced nations of earth are introducing it to- 
day. Their chief crime against society was that 
they were several centuries ahead of their gen- 
eration. They attained this distinction by going 
back frankly and fully to the eternal spiritual 
principles of the gospel as revealed in the New 
Testament. 

Under the stress of persecution some of the 
more ignorant and radical ran into wild fanaticism 
and even moral excesses, which brought deep re- 
proach on the whole cause. The most flagrant 
case of this kind was that of Miinster when in 
1535 the Anabaptists gained control of the city 
and fell into such excesses as to make them a 
stench in the nostrils of all Europe. But that 
fanaticism and license are not logical fruits of 
their views, as was then maintained, has been 
shown by the whole history of religious freedom 
in the United States and elsewhere. 

But the evil was done, the party was discredited 
and on the decline; the forces opposed to the 
scriptural principles lying at the base of faith- 
baptism were too strong to yield. They could not 
wholly exterminate anti-pedobaptism, but they 
did isolate, nullify and render it negligible. 

From the continent the anti-pedobaptist move- 
ment was soon transplanted to England. Here 
it met much the same treatment as on the con- 
tinent. Henry VHI and his successors proceeded 
against it vigorously and ruthlessly. In the early 
days of its history in England it seems to have 
been found among foreigners altogether, and it 



118 Infant-Baptism. 

did not affect the English people until they were 
aroused by the Puritan controversy of the last 
half of the sixteenth and the first half of the sev- 
enteenth centuries. Some of the peculiar social, 
religious, political and economic viev/s it had held 
on the continent were then abandoned and what 
is ordinarily known as the English Baptist move- 
ment emerged from it about 1611. It was still 
known as Anabaptism and was bitterly persecuted 
till Cromwell's regime brought a measure of re- 
ligious freedom to England. It then grew very 
rapidly and by the end of the century there were 
more than a hundred churches and several thou- 
sand members. This growth they had achieved in 
little more than a half century under the pressure 
of continuous persecution except during the brief 
period of CromweH's power. Moreover they were 
themselves divided into two warring parties, one 
of which embraced the Calvinistic and the other 
the Arminian system of theology. In other re- 
spects they were fairly harmonious in faith and 
practice. They were called Anabaptists by their 
opponents, but usually called themselves ''breth- 
ren" and their churches simply ''churches of 
Christ'' or "baptized churches of Christ." 

When persecution ceased in 1689 the proba- 
bilities of rapid expansion seemed great. Free- 
dom from the oppressive hand of the State had 
not been enjoyed by those who cherished anti- 
pedobaptist sentiments for centuries, and free- 
dom was apparently the one thing necessary for 
growth. But they soon felt the chill of the ra- 



AntirPedolaptist Sentiment. Hg 

tionalism of the eighteenth century. Spiritual 
coldness and deadness seized them, activity 
largely ceased, an excessive interest in the purely 
intellectual side of Christianity developed. Most 
of the Arminian wing became Unitarian and the 
others became hyper-Calvinists. Naturally growth 
ceased. They were probably not so numerous at 
the middle of the eighteenth century as they had 
been at the beginning. 

In the meantime the prefix *'Ana'' was being 
gradually dropped from the name, and they be- 
gan to be known simply as Baptists. By the year 
1800 the term ''Anabaptist'' had almost disap- 
peared from use both in England and America. 
Before this time the Baptists had begun to feel 
the refreshing eftects of the great evangelical re- 
vival. The Arminians were largely saved from 
their Unitarianism and the Calvinists from their 
rigid hyper-Calvinism and antinomianism. The 
period of prosperity was at hand. 

In America anti-pedobaptist sentiments made 
themselves manifest early in the history of the 
English settlements in Massachusetts. Roger 
Williams and others began the agitation of the 
question in the thirties of the seventeenth century 
and by 1639 had been banished from Massachu- 
setts and had established a colony and an anti- 
pedobaptist church in Rhode Island. They were 
immediately dubbed ''Anabaptists" and all the 
stigma that had attached to them in the Old 
World was transferred to the New. From this 
center they spread by degrees throughout all the 



120 Infant-Baptism. 

English colonies, meeting suspicion and obloquy 
everywhere and at places, notably in Massachu- 
setts and Virginia, suffering severe persecution. 
The growth and vicissitudes of anti-pedobap- 
tists in this country were in general parallel with 
their history in the mother country. During the 
eighteenth century they met powerful opposition 
and suffered from the prevalent spiritual decline. 
But during this time they sloughed off the name 
''Anabaptist'' and began to respond to the blessed 
influence of the Great Awakening which was now 
sweeping over the country. They had suffered 
from the spirit of division and isolation, and their 
growth had been very slow. By 1790 there were 
perhaps a hundred thousand, but they, too, were 
now standing on the threshold of their period of 
prosperity. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CHILD AND THE KINGDOM— THE 
NEW PELAGIANISM. 



Infant-baptism is still practiced and tenderly 
cherished by the great mass of the Christian 
world. In those countries where the union be- 
tween Church and State is still intact — states like 
Russia, Germany and Austria, — the practice of in- 
fant-baptism is almost universal. The Greek and 
the Roman Catholic churches in all lands where 
they exist still insist that baptism is absolutely 
necessary to salvation. On this ground they bap- 
tize all infants, lest dying in infancy they be barred 
from the vision of the face of God forever and 
be confined in the limbo prepared for unbaptized 
infants who die in infancy. Many, if not a ma- 
jority of the Lutherans in all lands continue to 
baptize infants for the same reason, the regenerat- 
ing power of baptism. The ritualistic wing of 
the Anglican or Episcopal church likewise be- 
lieves in baptismal regeneration, and practices in- 
fant-baptism for this reason. All these churches 
continue infant-baptism on its original basis, that 
is, its magical regenerating effects on the uncon- 
scious infant. As we have seen in the preceding 
chapters this was the sole recognized ground for 
the practice down to the Reformation. These 
churches do not consider any religious experience 

(121) 



3^22 Infant-Baptism. 

3l ''conversion/' but only an ''awakening.'' They 
hold that the child was regenerated in its baptism, 
needing thereafter only instruction and direction. 

On the other hand, evangelical pedobaptists — 
Presbyterians, "Reformed," Congregationalists, 
Methodists and a few minor parties — have be- 
come more evangelical in this last period. Most 
of them insist on conversion through the exer- 
cise of repentance and a living faith. This reli- 
gious experience must precede the beginning of 
real church membership. Baptized infants hold a 
wholly ambiguous and uncertain position in re- 
lation to church membership, undefined and in- 
definable. Infant-baptism is continued as a social 
custom while the actual religious life of the in- 
dividual is begun and fostered much as among 
the anti-pedobaptists. It still nullifies faith-bap- 
tism and prevents its members from obeying the 
plain command of Christ to everyone that be- 
lieves, the command to be baptized. 

Quite recently the whole question has taken on a 
new form. Within the last dozen or fifteen years 
there has occurred a marked revival of the old 
Pelagian conception of the child. Pelagius and 
his supporters in the fifth and sixth centuries con- 
tended that the new-born babe was absolutely 
innocent and unpolluted by sin, that its nature 
was untainted by inheritance from its ancestors, 
but pure like that of Adam before the fall ; in 
short, that actual sin was due to environment 
and in no sense or degree to heredity. He ad- 
mitted that human beings fall into sin as they 



The Neto Pelagianism. 123 

advance in life, but affirmed that this tragic fact 
was due to imitation of their elders and not to 
any evil tendencies within themselves. These 
views precipitated a long and tedious controversy 
which resulted in their repudiation by the Chris- 
tian world almost unanimously. They were felt 
to be false to the testimony of experience and 
the teachings of Scripture and to be dangerous 
in their practical tendencies. Even the great up- 
heaval of the Reformation did not stimulate any 
serious revival of this discarded conception of 
child nature. Lutheranism, Calvinism and Ar- 
minianism, while differing widely on many points, 
were agreed as to the presence of some taint of 
sin in all human beings. They believed that 
human nature w^as poisoned at its roots in Adam. 
However much Christian thinkers might differ 
as to details, they were a unit in the conviction 
that Scripture, Christian experience and the uni- 
versality of sin in adults made inescapable the 
conclusion that the child, at birth, is somehow 
and in some degree tainted or weakened or cor- 
rupted by sin. 

But toward the end of the nineteenth century 
the Christian v/orld suddenly became conscious 
of its surpassing excellencies. Human nature, it 
w^as contended, is not so bad as the pessimistic 
old theologians conceived it. The doctrine of 
the fatherhood of God was emphasized as never 
before, the doctrines of the atonement and re- 
demption were minimized and relegated to the 



124 Infant-Baptism, 

scrapheap of the outworn, the death on Calvary 
was no longer regarded as sacrificial. These 
and related views, resting on an exceedingly 
shallow view of human nature, became widely 
current. It was inevitable that the older con- 
ception of the nature of the child should be af- 
fected. Turning away from the findings of 
the older theology and even from the teachings 
of Scripture, men in whom this tendency was 
strong found their chief support in the supposed 
conclusions of science. Biology and physiology 
discovered that the child, in its embryonic and 
infantile state and development, was remarkably 
like the other vertebrates ; was, in fact, an animal. 
Child psychology penetrated, or claimed to pene- 
trate, the child soul and there found nothing 
either good or bad. In a word, science could find 
no trace of sin in the child's soul or body, and 
hence concluded that there could be no taint of 
sin there. Such was the argument, or at least 
the course of reasoning, pursued by many advo- 
cates of the sinlessness of the infant. The fact 
that all children eventually become sinners if 
they grow to maturity gave the new Pelagians 
some pause, but this difficulty was surmounted 
in one way or another. Hence followed the 
bold assumption and contention that all children, 
being innocent and untainted by sin, children 
of God at birth, are to be baptized on the basis of 
this supposedly sinless state. They are in the king- 
dom, need no conversion or regeneration. The 



The New Pclagianism. 125 

task of parents is not to bring them to a saving 
knowledge of God in Christ Jesus, for they need 
no salvation; their task is rather to keep the 
child from falling out of the kingdom of God, 
of which each was a member when he was born 
into the world. 

These views, current chiefly among the Con- 
gregationalists and Methodists, but not entirely 
wanting in several other denominations, have 
found more or less full and clear expression in a 
number of works on child nature and religion 
in the last few years. One of the frankest and 
clearest popular statements appeared in a book- 
let by Dr. John T. McFarland, bearing the title, 
"Preservation versus The Rescue of the Child.'' 
On account of his prominence and representative 
position in the Northern Methodist church he is 
here quoted at some length. The excerpts from 
this little work will make his views perfectly 
clear. He says, on page 8: "The child begins 
life as a child of God. . . . The child is the 
only thing which Jesus ever held up as a sample 
of the kingdom." Again, on page 13, he says: 
'The child begins life as a child of God. . . . 
The child does not require to be rescued. The 
child does not need to be brought back into the 
kingdom, because the child is already in the 
kingdom. The great responsibility and the 
great duty of the church, consequently, is not the 
rescue of little children, but their preservation. 
They are in the kingdom ; our business is to see 



126 Infant-Baptism, 

that they remain in the kingdom. . . . We 
should impress it upon children in the begin- 
ning of their lives that they belong to the 
heavenly Father's house, and that the wisest 
thing which they can do is to remain contentedly, 
obediently, and happily in that house." 

A slightly different but closely related view 
of the child's nature is found in the baptismal 
ritual of the Southern Methodist church. It 
reads as follows : ''Dearly beloved, forasmuch 
as all men, though fallen in Adam, are born into 
this world in Christ the Redeemer, heirs of life 
eternal, subjects of the saving grace of the Holy 
Spirit,''* etc. Here the conception is not that the 
child is born free from the contamination of 
original sin, but that it is born redeemed and 
saved. 

Viev/s very similar to the last exist among 
Presbyterians, except that they limit the benefits 
of Christ's death to the children of believing 
parents. For example, it is said in a book cir- 
culated by the Westminster Press, presumably 
with the endorsement of the Northern Presby- 
terian church: ''The children of believers are 
to be treated as regenerate,"** that is, at their 
natural birth. Again it is said, "Not only is the 
regeneration from earliest infancy of the children 
of believers possible and credible, but Scripture 

^Doctrine and Discipline, p. 537, quoted by Weaver, 
Religious Development of the Child, p. 63. 

**Wliite, Why Infants are Baptized, p. 45. 



The New Pelagianism. 127 

expressions encourage us to expect it. . . . 
Facts in the Church favor the belief that the 
children of behevers are to be presumed regen- 
erate till the contrary appears.'^' 

These quotations are sufficient to set forth the 
fundamental convictions of this modern school 
of thinkers. They show differences in detail 
but are agreed in the general results. The 
Methodists apply their views to all infants, 
whether they are children of Christian or non- 
Christian parents ; the Presbyterians confine 
their statements to the children of believing 
parents. The first quotation seems to indicate 
that the author believes that all infants are in- 
herently innocent and wholly unaffected by 
hereditary sin, and the second plainly states that 
though fallen in x\dam they are all redeemed in 
Christ, while the third claims regeneration for 
the children of believing parents. In effect the 
views are the same : all newborn children (or 
children of believing parents) are born into the 
world in Christ, regenerate, in a state of grace, 
in the kingdom, in the church. Various terms 
and phrases are used, all meaning substantially 
the same thing, and upon the basis of this as- 
sumption it is claimed that infants are to be bap- 
tized. They are as much children of God as 
believing adults, and are, therefore, to be bap- 
tized as repentant and believing adults are to be 
baptized. The advocates of this view claim 

*White, Why Infants are Baptized, p. 48. 



128 Infant-Baptism. 

that they have but one baptism for all, that they 
baptize children and adults for exactly the same 
reason, that is, because they are children of God. 
Baptism, it is claimed, is a recognition of that 
fact. 

This reasoning, it must be confessed, gives to 
infant-baptism a show of rationality and scrip- 
turalness that it has never before enjoyed. Mani- 
festly the Scriptures set forth but one baptism, 
and yet evangelical pedobaptists have always 
had two baptisms : one based on faith for be- 
lieving adults, and one for infants based on 
something else. This view of baptism, if tena- 
ble, relieves them of this embarrassment. Again, 
it bases infant-baptism on the spiritual condition 
of the infant itself rather than on some fictitious 
conception of faith, such as the vicarious faith 
of the parents or the god-parents or the church, 
or upon a quasi-iRith of the child itself, or on a 
faith to be exercised and manifested by the child 
in the future. Baptism, it is claimed by these 
brethren, has no relation to faith in any case, 
but is a ceremonial recognition of the regenerate 
state and divine sonship of the individual to be 
baptized, that is, the infant. 

This new argument for infant-baptism is 
thought by its advocates to furnish a firmer basis 
for their practice than they have ever before had. 
Evidently they feel relieved, for they attack the 
old arguments for infant-baptism and expose 
their absurdities as vigorously as the anti-pedo- 



The New Pelagianism. 129 

baptists have ever done. Judging from their 
writings one would be compelled to conclude that 
they have long felt the inadequacy of the old 
arguments, and now, feeling themselves more se- 
cure on their new basis, they rejoice in demol- 
ishing the old fortifications. 

But are they so secure as they feel ? Will their 
view of child nature commend itself to the 
thought and experience of the Christian world? 
And if their conception of child nature is cor- 
rect, does that warrant infant-baptism? Several 
things are to be noted in the consideration of 
this matter. 

In the first place they are reviving a view of 
child nature that was long ago considered and 
rejected, a view that is now held by an extremely 
small minority of the Christian world. This by 
no means proves their contentions to be false, 
but it is a consideration which should make 
thinking men wary in accepting it without the 
most careful consideration. 

In the next place it should be noted that it is 
based on science and sentiment far more than 
on Scripture and religious experience. It is not 
intended by this remark to intimate any want of 
appreciation of either science or sentiment. The 
Christian world of the present day owes a great 
debt of gratitude to science. It has exploded 
many a hoary and hurtful superstition which 
had long hampered spiritual progress. Its con- 
tributions to a better understanding of the reality 



130 Infant-Baptism. 

and nature of Christian experience in recent 
years are gratefully acknowledged. But science 
has its limitations which scientists do not always 
recognize. And this writer is disposed to think 
child nature has been one subject about which 
there has sometimes been more confident assertion 
than real knowledge. This is said without any 
intention of disparaging the great benefit which 
has accrued to religious workers through the in- 
tense study which psychologists have devoted to 
the child in recent years. No man who aspires 
to efficiency in Christian work can afford to re- 
main unacquainted with the studies of these 
scientists. But in declaring the infant to be sin- 
less, science has gone beyond the possibilities of 
scientific knowledge. There are no instruments 
or tests by which the taint of sin can be de- 
tected. Doubtless the old Catholic theology 
made assertions concerning the sinfulness of the 
child that were crude and even gross, but the 
rejection of these errors need not drive us to 
the other extreme. It is fair to ask how we are 
to explain the universality of sin in adults if all 
children or any children are entirely free from 
its weakening and polluting effects through 
heredity? How^ explain the fact, known to all 
who have given the matter attention, that earth's 
saintliest characters have as an invariable rule 
been most keenly conscious of sin? How is it 
that of all earth's great and good, Jesus 
alone shows no sense of sin or unworthiness ? 



The Neiv Pelagianism. 131 

The new Pelagianism must answer these and 
similar questions before their view of child 
nature can be accepted, no matter what the 
students of child psychology may say. 

The one passage of Scripture which is relied 
on most largely — in fact, almost exclusively — is 
the beautiful saying of Jesus : "Of such is the 
kingdom of God (heaven),'' Matt. 19: 14; Mark 
10: 14; Luke 18: i6f. It is argued from this 
passage that the kingdom of God, here conceived 
of as the saved, is composed of infants and such 
as infants, and that therefore infants must be 
sinless and proper subjects for baptism. This 
view is apparently favored by the King James 
Version, but the true meaning is far better ex- 
pressed by the American Standard Version, which 
translates the passage, "To such belongeth the 
kingdom of God.'' The "kingdom" does not 
mean the saved, but a body of spiritual riches 
represented and embodied in Jesus. These 
riches are free to all, children as well as others, 
who will appropriate them. The disciples did 
not understand this great truth and sought to 
hinder the children from intruding on the Mas- 
ter's time and attention. He rebuked them and 
opened a way for the children, declaring that 
the kingdom belonged to children also. The* 
Pelagian interpretation of this passage is cer- 
tainly wrong. Jesus is not passing on the spir- 
itual condition of children, but asserting their 
right to freedom of access to himself and to the 



3^32 Infant-Baptism. 

riches of the kingdom, as they can come. Com- 
pare two exactly parallel passages in Matt. 5 : 3 
and 10. 

But it is not intended to consider the nature 
of the child here at any length. Our interest in 
the subject is the bearing of this contention on 
the practice and defense of infant-baptism. 

It should be remarked in passing that the argu- 
ments for infant-baptism advanced by the new 
Pelagians are shaky just in so far as their view 
of child nature is uncertain. If their view of 
child nature is false, the whole practice of infant- 
baptism would, according to their contention, fall 
to the ground, for they reject all other reasons for 
baptizing infants as wholly untenable. 

Several other considerations adverse to this 
new Pelagianism force themselves on our atten- 
tion. In the first place, they have, in order to 
include infant-baptism in their '^one baptism," 
wrenched adult baptism from its biblical relation 
to faith and declared that a state of grace and not 
the exercise of faith is the prerequisite of bap- 
tism. It was plainly necessary to do something 
of this kind if they were to hold that there is but 
*'one baptism." Infant-baptism is not a faith- 
baptism; therefore it became necessary to deny 
that adult-baptism is a faith-baptism. The older 
theologians, in order to preserve the semblance 
of "one baptism," assumed some kind of faith in 
the infant; these new" theologians, in order to 
preserve ''one baptism," have denied faith as 



The New Pelagianism, 133 

the basis of adult-baptism. An assumed state of 
grace, identical in newly born infants and in saved 
adults, is the basis of baptism according to them. 
It seems hardly necessary to point out that this 
contention is absolutely without Scripture war- 
rant. The Bible everywhere couples faith with 
baptism, everywhere makes faith a condition of 
baptism. The attempt to deny or obscure this 
fact constitutes an inexcusable perversion of 
Scripture teaching. It is more objectionable 
and less justifiable, if possible, than the old as- 
sumption of a quasi'isiiih in the infant. The 
older defenders of infant-baptism departed from 
Scripture teaching less than these. 

In the second place this infant-baptism nulli- 
fies faith-baptism just as much as the old infant- 
baptism did. Many of its advocates frankly 
admit that it is not found in the New Testament. 
Dr. Wright says : 'The New Testament is si- 
lent concerning it/' and explains its origin as 
follows : "The custom of children's baptism 
probably had its roots in Jewish traditions and 
practices, and the fear that unbaptized persons 
would be excluded from the kingdom forever, in 
harmony with the well-nigh unchallenged phrase, 
extra ecclesiam nulla salus/'"^ Notwithstanding 
this silence of the Scriptures this baptism is made 
to nullify the plain command of Scripture that 
every believer 'should be baptized, for no pedo- 

*Wright, Moral Condition and Development of the 
Child, pp. 163! * 



J^34 infant-Baptism. 

baptist would think of administering a faith-bap- 
tism to a person who had been baptized in in- 
fancy. Faith-baptism is just as much destroyed 
by this as by any other reason for infant-bap- 
tism. 

In the next place this view of infant-baptism 
does not differ so widely from the old magical 
conception of baptism as at first appears. 
It is true that these brethren reject with 
the utmost decision all the older concep- 
tions of infant-baptism. In fact, they are 
as severe as any anti-pedobaptist could pos- 
sibly be. Dr. Wright admits "that it is little 
wonder that a custom that has been defended 
by an appeal to such absurdities and unfounded 
necessities, by such conflicting arguments and 
disregard of personal history, should fail of gen- 
eral acceptance and understanding.''"^ He adds 
that ''there are certain conceptions of infant bap- 
tism that appear to us as little better than gross 
superstition on the one hand, or based on imag- 
inary necessities on the other. They dwell in 
the region of mystical relations and imaginary 
benefits. It is impossible to trace the moral 
benefit to children, in their actual lives. "^"^ 

Dr. McFarland is even severer on former and 
present-day Methodist practice than any Baptist 
would dare to be. He says, "The truth is, we 

*Wright, Moral Condition and Development of the 
Child, p. 167. 

**Wright, Moral Condition and Development of the 
Child, p. 169. 



The Neio Pelagianism. 135 

have been grossly inconsistent in our practices. 
We have baptized our children, and by that act 
we have declared them to be the children of God 
and as belonging to the kingdom, and then forth- 
with we have proceeded to deal w^ith them as if 
the implications of this baptism were false. In- 
deed we have not taken seriously our own prac- 
tice of baptizing children. . . . Either we 
should abandon the habit of baptizing children, or 
we should assume frankly the responsibility 
which such baptism implies.'' 

Baptists have long recognized something of 
the inconsistencies and absurdities into which 
our pedobaptist brethren are wont to fall, and 
they can but rejoice to observe the growing con- 
sciousness of these conditions among the pedo- 
baptists themselves. Baptists can even welcome 
these Pelagians as colaborers in so far as they 
assist in unmasking and opposing these weak- 
nesses and other objectionable features of the 
older pedobaptism. But the objections to this 
new Pelagianism are no less serious than to the 
old pedobaptism. It has the appearance of far 
greater spirituality than the old magical view of 
infant-baptism, but as a matter of fact the two 
views which seem to be at the opposite poles of 
theological thought are separated but by a hair's 
breadth. It is another case where extremes meet. 
The CathoHc regards the child as sinful at birth, 
believes the benefits of Christ's death are ap- 
plied to it by the Holy Spirit in baptism; it is 



236 Infant-Baptism. 

then believed to be regenerate and henceforth to 
need only careful training for its eternal safety. 
The new Pelagian regards the newborn child as 
sinless by nature, or regenerate and in a state of 
grace by virtue of Christ's death ; for this reason 
he is to be baptized and for the future needs only 
to be carefully trained to be secure of eternal life. 
As in the case of the Catholic child, the whole 
stupendous transaction took place in the moral 
unconsciousness of infancy; the recipient will 
know nothing of the experience except as it is 
told him in later years. The day after baptism 
the two children are supposed to be in the same 
state : both are regarded as regenerate, baptized, 
in the kingdom, in a state of grace, in the church. 
The only difference is as to the time of the 
supposed act of regeneration. It is the differ- 
ence between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee. It 
is supposed that neither will need conversion in 
the future, both are to be taught that they are 
children of God and instructed accordingly; any 
future religious experience must be regarded as 
only ''an awakening" and in no sense an experi- 
ence necessary to salvation. One child is sup- 
posed to have been regenerated in unconscious- 
ness before baptism, the other in unconsciousness 
in baptism. Can any one assert that either case 
is less magical and irrational than the other? 
Obviously both systems are anti-evangelical, be- 
cause both reject the idea of conversion as a 
fruit of the conscious apprehension of Jesus 



The New Pelagianism. 137 

Christ as Saviour and Lord, both nullify the 
gospel except for those unfortunates who be- 
cause of their own perversity or the criminal 
neglect of those who had the oversight over them 
have fallen out of the kingdom. It is too soon 
to learn by actual test of experience what the 
effect of these views will be on evangelical re- 
ligion, but there is great reason for fear that it 
will be seriously hurtful. Salvation by grace 
through faith is eliminated in ideal if not in fact; 
repentance and faith lose all relation to justifica- 
tion, become unnecessary and are well-nigh 
meaningless ; conversion, an anachronism. Dr. 
McFarland says, ''Conversion is necessary only to 
those who have fallen away from God through 
voluntary sin, . . . We have fallen into the 
error of regarding certain experiences which 
come naturally to children in their moral and 
spiritual development as conversion, when in 
reality it is only what may be called 'the spiritual 
awakening' that is a necessary incident to the 
spiritual life, when that which lies latent and un- 
defined in the mind becomes active and definite.'' 
This statement, made by one of the leaders of a 
great evangelical denomination, would be entirely 
acceptable to any of the ritualistic churches which 
believe in sacramental salvation. Even the ter- 
minology is borrowed from them. The entire 
booklet of Dr. McFarland deprecates the idea of 
the necessity of conversion for those who have 
been baptized in infancy and properly trained as 
they grew to maturity. 



A 



138 Infant-Baptism. 

From the standpoint of the Baptists and even 
evangelical pedobaptists these views are much 
more dangerous and objectionable than the older 
contention of evangelical pedobaptists. For hov^- 
ever ambiguous the status of the baptized infant 
might be among them, it was maintained that it 
must be converted on coming to years as if it 
had not been baptized. This inconsistency in the 
older pedobaptism saved its evangelical truth 
and made it minister the gospel to all not- 
withstanding its infant-baptism. This new Pela- 
gianism in its consistency has ceased to be evan- 
gelical. If these views are widely accepted, the 
gradual cooling of evangelical fervor and evan- 
gelistic activity among the evangelical pedobap- 
tists may be confidently expected. In seeking to 
escape the absurdities and inconsistencies of in- 
fant-baptism the new Pelagians have fallen into 
its most serious dangers. No friend of evan- 
gelical religion can anticipate the practical re- 
sults without the gravest concern for the future. 

It ought to be said in conclusion, perhaps, that 
this controversy over the nature of the child in 
no way affects the Baptist view of baptism. To 
them baptism is faith-baptism. It is not a means 
by which parents are to dedicate their children 
unto God, nor is it a mark of innocence or sin- 
lessness, but a God-given means of public self- 
dedication. Repentance and faith are presup- 
posed because no soul can dedicate itself unto 
God without the exercise of these graces. 



The Netc Pelagianism. 139 

It ought to be said further that Baptists do not 
minimize the importance of reUgious training of 
children in the home and the church ; they beheve 
parents should dedicate their children unto Gk)d 
and train them carefully in the nurture and admo- 
nition of the Lord. They feel that they can 
without immodesty claim that their actions con- 
firm these statements. Their Sunday schools 
are not behind those of their neighbors either in 
attendance or efficiency, their ministers are as 
wide-awake and as progressive as any, their 
seminaries among the most efficient in training 
leaders for the religious and moral education of 
the childhood and the youth of the country, their 
teacher-training work is well developed and effi- 
cient. Nor do they believe that their homes are 
less the abodes of piety and religious devotion 
than those of their pedobaptist neighbors; they 
do not see that any larger part of their children 
show indifference to religion than of their neigh- 
bors. In a word, they believe that infant-bap- 
tism on the new Pelagian basis is just as devoid 
of scriptural warrant, just as futile in its prac- 
tical effects, just as dangerous to spiritual re- 
ligion, just as objectionable from every point of 
view as that which was grounded on the sinful- 
ness of the child. Their practice of faith-bap- 
tism enables them to consider with perfect free- 
dom and frankness the spiritual condition of the 
child. This baptism is the barrier to endless 
errors and the assurance of the preservation of 
evangelical faith. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



FORCES OPERATING IN FAVOR OF 
FAITH-BAPTISM. 



What are some of the causes of these great 
changes which the nineteenth century wrought in 
the standing and prosperity of the anti-pedobap- 
tist movement? Doubtless there is much which 
cannot be explained, but some forces can be in- 
dicated. Among these the tremendous revival in 
Bible study should be put first. The Reforma- 
tion rescued the Bible from the neglect and sus- 
picion from which it suffered in the Catholic 
church, and gave it again to the people in their 
own language. But its full effects were in part 
nullified by defects in translation, by the illiteracy 
of the people, most of whom could not read, and 
by the fact that the churches used catechisms in 
the religious instruction of the people rather than 
the Bible itself. These catechisms presented the 
peculiar views of the churches which issued them 
and prevented the Bible from exerting its whole 
influence upon the people, except as some of them 
read it for themselves. Even the Protestant 
churches made no effort to teach the Bible directly 
and in its entirety to the people. But nothwith- 
standing this serious defect in the religious in- 
struction of the people at the period of the Re- 

(140) 



Forces for Faith-Baptism. 141 

formation there was, as we have seen above, a 
tremendous outburst of anti-pedobaptist senti- 
ment which could be quenched only in blood. 

Again in the seventeenth century, especially in 
England, there was a renevv^ed effort to give the 
Bible to all the people, with a corresponding re- 
vival of anti-pedobaptist sentiment. It is a no- 
table fact that English Baptists issued their first 
Confession of Faith in the year 1611, the year in 
which the King James Version, the great English 
vulgate, came from the press. Just in proportion 
as the use of that book, translated wholly by pedo- 
baptist scholars, spread among the people Baptist 
sentiment grew. 

But it was in the nineteenth century that the 
glory of biblical scholarship reached its full bloom, /v 
Bible lands were explored, Bible customs inves- 
tigated on the spot, Bible languages studied in- 
tensively, biblical manuscripts were discovered 
and collated, Bible versions revised and new 
translations made in nearly all the languages of 
the earth. Human learning and ability have ex- 
hausted all their resources in elucidating the Bi- 
ble text and teachings through commentaries, 
lives of Christ and the great scriptural characters 
and in the study of every phase of scriptural 
teaching. 

At the same time the modern Sunday school > 
movement came on, using the Bible as its text- 
book in the religious education of the people. Be- 
ginning with instruction of the small children 
ogIj, it has gradually enlarged its scope until it 



142 Infant-Baptism, 

now affects the lives of multitudes through the 
direct study of the Bible from the cradle to the 
grave. This has been supplemented by the pop- 
ular study of the Bible in numerous other ways, 
such as through the Young Men's and Young 
Women's Christian Associations, Chautauquas, 
Institutes, etc. All this has prepared the soil for 
the spread of anti-pedobaptist sentiments, by pre- 
senting positively and directly the Scripture teach- 
ing on baptism. Sometimes, no doubt, pedobap- 
tist laymen have been perplexed when they have 
sought Scripture warrant for the practice of in- 
fant-baptism. When they have investigated they 
have been forced to see that all Scripture bap- 
tisms were faith-baptisms. But the most impor- 
tant result has been the gradual melting away of 
the most baneful effects of infant-baptism in pedo- 
baptist churches in this warm current of Scrip- 
ture study. 

A second force, already hinted at, which has 
greatly strengthened the anti-pedobaptist move- 
ment is the general diffusion of enlightenment. 
The public school has come, the masses have been 
made literate, they can read the Bible for them- 
selves, superstitious reverence for the Church and 
ecclesiastical institutions has been waning. In- 
fant-baptism has flourished where the people took 
their religious instruction wholly from the Church. 
Enlightenment and personal independence mili- 
tate against infant-baptism. It is administered in 
the ignorance and helplessness of infancy, faith- 
baptism is possible only where there is intelli- 
gence and self-direction. 



Forces for Faith-Baptism. ^43 

A third world movement which has greatly 
weakened the position of infant-baptism is the 
gradual attainment of political and religious free- 
dom. The practical triumph of infant-baptism 
in the Middle Ages was largely based on force. 
The indifference of free men, if not their active 
opposition, would have prevented the practical 
universality of the practice. But they were forced 
to have their children baptized by the anathemas 
of the Church and the more concrete threats of 
the State. But the eighteenth century saw the 
beginning of the establishment of religious free- 
dom. At first in the United States and then grad- 
ually in other lands a man was left to determine 
his religious actions for himself. If he desired 
to have his child baptized he could do so, but if 
he objected on religious or other grounds, or if 
he were merely indifferent, the child went unbap- 
tized. The immediate result has been that the 
great majority of the children in the United 
States, notwithstanding all the pressure which the 
great pedobaptist churches can exert, are grow- 
ing up unbaptized. They enjoy the privilege of 
deciding for themselves what their religious status 
shall be. Very many of them on conversion join 
pedobaptist churches, but they usually become, 
because of their own experience, an anti-pedobap- 
tist or non-pedobaptist leaven working in the 
pedobaptist communion. The practical result is 
that some of the pedobaptist churches in certain 
sections of our country have become to all in- 
tents and purposes the administrators of faith- 



144 Infant 'Baptism, 

baptisms only. There are sections where the bap- 
tism of an infant has not occurred in years, and 
the entire practice has simply fallen into "inocu- 
ous desuetude." This will be more and more the 
case as religious freedom spreads and deepens. 
No man who baptizes an infant is in favor of re- 
ligious freedom in the fullest sense. Proper rev- 
erence for personality will inevitably cause the 
discontinuance of infant-baptism. The onus 
probandi, the burden of proof, rests in our coun- 
try on the pedobaptist, not on the advocate of 
faith-baptism. The political, cultural and religious 
forces of the modern world are fighting against 
pedobaptism. Pedobaptism is declining in an 
exact but inverse ratio to the growth of freedom. 
Faith-baptism is the baptism of freedom, of per- 
sonal responsibility, of religious experience. 

The unparalleled evangelical revival of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been one 
of the mightiest factors in the decline of infant- 
baptism. The essence of the Protestant position 
is justification by faith. This faith is not the 
antithesis of ''works," in the sense that it was 
frequently and erroneously preached, but of ec- 
clesiastical ''works." Men are justified by faith 
apart from ecclesiastical ceremonies. This was 
the paramount contention of Luther and his fol- 
lowers. And yet Luther, as has been shown 
above, retained baptism as a regenerating sacra- 
ment of the Church. Naturally infant-baptism 
was retained, though it contradicted his central 
contention. The English Church stood in prac- 



Forces for Faith-Baptism. 145 

tical agreement with him on this point when the 
work of reform was complete. Other reformers 
were less sacramental in theory, but still retained 
infant-baptism, though in its origin, history and 
primary significance it was distinctly sacramental 
and anti-evangelical. 

Naturally whatever emphasizes the great gos- 
pel truth that salvation is the fruit of the repent- 
ance and faith of the individual must work to the 
discrediting of infant-baptism. If the Christian re- 
ligion is an experience of grace, then infant-bap- 
tism is no part of the Christian religion. It was just 
here that the evangelical revival of the eighteenth 
century laid its chief emphasis. Everything was 
subordinate to a personal experience of grace. 
Assurance of salvation was based, not on the 
church and sacraments, but on faith and perse- 
verance. By the end of the century this truth 
was widely operative in England and America. 
With its spread the Baptist cause sprang into 
power. The two have continued to flourish to- 
gether throughout the last century and a quar- 
ter. Every local revival has given a new stimu- 
lus to anti-pedobaptist sentiment and non-pedo- 
baptist practice even where it has not contributed 
largely to the growth of the Baptist denomina- 
tion. Infant-baptism has many supports — the 
faith of the parents, social custom, the compulsion 
of the state, the pressure of the church. Faith- 
baptism rests wholly on the faith and desire of the 
individual for baptism. Where there is no faith 
there will be no faith-baptism. Consequently the 

10 



/^ 



146 1 71 f ant-Baptism, 

success of the Baptist movement is absolutely de- 
pendent on the success of evangelical religion 
which preaches justification by faith, and an 
evangelical revival is uniformly a revival of anti- 
pedobaptist sentiment, and of prosperity for the 
Baptists. 

The fifth great movement of the period which 
has materially influenced the question of infant- 
baptism is the foreign missionary movement. 
Everybody recognizes that Christianity was orig- 
inally a missionary religion, differing in this re- 
gard from nearly all the other religions. Its 
Founder sets as its task the complete conquest 
of the world. The truths which he revealed were 
to be presented to the intelligence and consciences 
of all men who on accepting the position of dis- 
cipleship were to be baptized and further in- 
structed in the life of the kingdom of heaven. 
This is the teaching and the only teaching found 
in the Christian program as set forth in the last 
charge of Jesus known as the Commission. Each 
must become a Christian and live the Christian 
life for himself, irrespective of the nationality or 
religious status of his parents. 

But as time passed and the distinctive charac- 
ter of Christianity became obscured there arose 
a feeling that a child was in some sense a Chris- 
tian if his parents were Christians, just as a Jew- 
ish child was religiously as well as racially a Jew 
because his parents were Jews. Men began to 
speak of Christian families. Christian nations and 
a Christian society. These conceptions obscured 



Forces for Faith-Baptism. I47 

the missionary character of Christianity. But the 
original fundamental character of Christianity has 
been re-emphasized and brought into prominence 
by the modern missionary movement. Again men 
and women have gone forth, armed with the gos- 
pel, to preach and to baptize those that believe. 
The baptism of the mission fields is a faith-bap- 
tism. This has reacted powerfully at home. Lis- 
ten to the addresses in a missionary conference, 
made by Baptists and pedobaptists, and you will 
find they are all Baptists on missions. All speak 
of preaching, conversion and baptism. Infant- 
baptism, which is an absurdity on a mission field, 
can hardly be entirely appropriate or permanently 
very important at home. Beyond question the 
foreign mission movement has exerted consider- 
able influence on the decline of infant-baptism in 
the home lands. 

The extensive study of church history, which 
has been one of the marked characteristics of 
theological education in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, has continually exerted considerable influ- 
ence upon the ministry. It is true that the pedo- 
baptist seminaries as a rule have loyally sup- 
ported the pedobaptist practices of the churches 
to which they belong. It is also true that it is 
never the ministers of religion who break away 
from the ecclesiastical traditions of the commu- 
nion to which they belong. Individual ministers 
do, here and there, emancipate themselves from 
''the traditions of the elders," but it is to the laity 
we look to get back to essentials. And yet it must 



148 Infant-Baptism. 

be exceedingly embarrassing to scholarly young 
pedobaptist ministers, as they follow the pages 
of church history, to see the total absence of in- 
fant-baptism from the pages of Scripture, to ob- 
serve the sources from which it sprang in the 
third and succeeding centuries, to follow its dark 
and bloody history through the centuries of the 
Middle Ages and down into modern times. It 
must be rather difficult for a sincere man who 
knows church history to defend and administer 
this ceremony. Of course, not many make any 
thorough study of church history. This is the 
most charitable view to take with regard to their 
actions. 

The study of religious phychology is another 
force operative toward the establishment of faith- 
baptism. Psychology is the study of the content of 
consciousness, religious psychology is an account 
of the content of the religious consciousness. 
To psychology there is no religion where there 
is no consciousness of religion. Infant baptism 
is a psychological absurdity. Religious psychology 
studies the phenomena of conversion and the 
other religious experiences, thus lifting them into 
prominence as the initial and essential elements 
of religion. Naturally infant-baptism loses its 
significance for the religious life because it is ad- 
^^ ministered when the child is religiously uncon- 
scious. On the other hand, faith-baptism receives 
a powerful impulse in that it is based upon a 
religious experience and contributes to the 
strengthening of the religious content of the soul. 



Foixes for Faith-Baptism, 149 

The final reason for the administration of bap- 
tism at all is psychological. Jesus Christ knew 
that man is so constituted as to need some exter- 
nal means by which he can register and express 
his great religious decision. As the fraternal or- 
ders adopt some ceremonies, made as appropriate 
and expressive as possible, to emphasize the sig- 
nificance of the act of uniting with the order, so 
baptism is needed by men to mark that great crisis 
in life when a soul deliberately, solemnly and 
voluntarily takes its stand with God and his peo- 
ple. The profoundest realities of that experience 
are expressed by the immersion of the believer 
in the name of the Trinity. Religious psychology 
supports faith-baptism while it renders infant- 
baptism irrational and nugatory. 

The fact that anti-pedobaptists have been giv- 
ing more attention to the religious training of 
their children and have been making efforts for 
their conversion at an earlier age than formxerly 
has deprived evangelical pedobaptists of a great 
part of the strength of their appeal. The children 
of Baptist parents are as well trained religiously 
and are converted as early in life as those bap- 
tized in infancy. In pedobaptist theory the bap-, 
tism of infants brings them closer to the spiritual 
treasures of the kingdom; actually there is no 
evidence that it has any effect on them whatever. 
Spiritual riches are just as accessible to Baptist 
children as to any other, and are as early and 
earnestly appropriated. The religious character; 
of a child baptized in infancy depends on its train- 



J50 Infant-Baptism, 

ing and its own personal religious experiences 
precisely as that of a child not baptized. There 
is no distinction. 

The great wave of democracy which has swept 
over the earth during the last century has con- 
tributed materially to the growth of anti-pedo- 
baptist sentiment. If man has reached his ma- 
jority and is capable of self-direction in all other 
affairs of life, is he still to be a minor in reli- 
gion ? Must he rely upon the magical effects of 
a ceremony received in infancy, in the highest 
affairs of his soul, while life's other great con- 
cerns are decided in the full light of his own con- 
sciousness and in accordance with the decisions 
of his own sovereign will? Democracy says, no. 
The individual must direct his own religious af- 
fairs; he must be free. 

Finally, the great change which has come over 
the belief of the Christian world as to the reli- 
gious status of the infant is working a rapid 
change in the practice of infant-baptism. It was 
easy for men, especially for a childless clergy, in 
the days of Augustine, to believe in the damna- 
tion of infants who died unbaptized. Today it is in- 
creasingly difficult for even the Catholic churches 
to keep the people believing such a monstrous 
doctrine. Even the milder doctrine of a limbo 
for infants dying unbaptized shocks the faith of 
many Catholics. We now believe the helpless 
child is cared for by the loving God and is not 
dependent on the accident of receiving an ecclesi- 
astical ceremony before its untimely death. 



Foixes for Faith-Baptism. \^\ 

It was perhaps easy for the reformers, batthng 
sternly for hfe and relying on God for every- 
thing, to believe that non-elect infants dying in 
infancy were lost. When the English Arminian 
Baptists began in the early seventeenth century 
to advocate the view that all infants dying in in- 
fancy are saved they were regarded as dangerous 
heretics. Men had been so long schooled in the 
feeling that the Church has some kind of bless- 
ing for the infant, even while it is an infant, that 
Zwingli and Calvin, notwithstanding their evan- 
gelical views, could not break away. They in- 
sisted that the child must be baptized and thus 
brought into the Church, else his parents would 
neglect him and his God would forget him. He 
would not be in covenant relation with God. But 
practical experience has shown that this relation 
to the Church has no appreciable effect on the 
child's life. That is dependent on his native char- 
acteristics and the environment. Today the world 
does not believe that a child must be baptized in 
order to be saved ; nor does it believe that it must 
be baptized to insure the love and care of its par- 
ents or the gracious blessing of God. God comes 
to the child as a child, a human being, not as the 
child of Christian parents. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MODERN PEDOBAPTIST SCHOLARSHIP. 



The indications are that the Baptist conten- 
tion concerning the unscriptural character and the 
ecclesiastical origin of infant-baptism will soon 
be as completely vindicated and as widely ac- 
cepted by the scholarly world as their position on 
the scriptural form or mode of baptism. It is 
\ now a common-place of biblical scholarship that 
^ baptism was administered solely by immersion in 
New Testament times, acknowledged alike by the 
untrammeled scholars of all communions. The 
same tendency is manifest with regard to infant- 
baptism. English and German scholars have in 
recent years frankly acknowledged that tliere is 
no warrant for infan^t-baptism in the way of com- 
mand or example in the Scriptures, and that it 
did not appear in Christian history much before 
the end of the second century. American pedo- 
baptist scholars are timidly beginning to show the 
same tendency, though they are much more ham- 
pered by ecclesiastical ties than their European 
brethren. It will not be long before all real schol- 
ars who are not bound by ecclesiastical traditions 
or other ties will openly and frankly acknowledge 
the facts that are so patent to anti- and non-pedo- 
baptists. This does not mean that they will aban- 

(152) 



Modern Pcdohaptist Scholarship, 153 

don infant-baptism, at least not at once ; it means 
that they will defend the practice on other than 
scriptural grounds. 

A few quotations from some of the leading 
pedobaptist scholars of the world will serve to 
indicate the direction of the tide. 

The Rev. George Hodges, dean of the Episco- 
pal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, is one of the ablest and most representative 
members of his communion. In a recent volume 
on "The Episcopal Church, Its Faith and Order,'' 
he says (page 51) in his discussion of baptism: 
"The recipients of baptism seem originally to 
have been persons of mature life. The command, 
'Go, teach all nations, and baptize them,' and the 
two conditions, 'Repent and be baptized,' and 'He 
that believeth and is baptized,' indicate adults." 

This is a brief but succinct statement of the 
Baptist position, the grounds on which they re- 
fuse to practice and actively oppose infant-bap- 
tism. But Dean Hodges, notwithstanding the 
above statement, continues to practice and approve 
infant-baptism. Let us see on what grounds. He 
continues : "At the same time, the admission of 
children into the Jewish church might be taken 
by the Christians as a precedent for their own 
use. The baptizing of households by the apostles 
seems to suggest the inclusion of children. A 
few statements in very early Christian writings 
indicate that children were baptized" (page 51). 
Irenseus, TertuUian, Origen and Cyprian are 
mentioned, and he proceeds : "The fact, however, 



154 Infant-Baptism. 

that various eminent Christians of the fourth 
century were not baptized in infancy suggests 
!^ that adult baptism was the common rule. Bap- 
tism was delayed until it was possible to fulfill 
the conditions of repentance and faith. . . . 
The postponement of baptism ceased to be a cus- 
tom in the church by reason of an understanding 
of its meaning as a sacrament of regeneration. 
St. Augustine taught that every infant is born 
under the curse of original sin, and cannot, with- 
out the new birth of baptism, enter into fullness 
of Ufe. This doctrine which populated hell with 
infants 'not a span long,' was easily applied by 
a childless clergy to other people's children. . . . 
It frightened people into the baptizing of their 
infant children.'' 

In these words Dean Hodges has stated the 
facts exactly. He does not claim scriptural war- 
rant, even by clear implication, for infant-bap- 
tism ; he admits that it first appears at the end 
of the second century and was finally made gen- 
eral by the theology of Augustine in the fifth 
century. Anti-pedobaptist scholars claim no more 
than the substance of these statements. Continu- 
ing, he gives the positive grounds on which he 
supports the practice. He says (page 53) : "But 
the baptizing of children ... is a true deduc- 
tion from the meaning of the sacrament. The 
Christian father was initiated into the Christian 
society, and the Christian mother was initiated 
with him, and they were not willing to leave the 
little boys and girls outside; that is the heart of 



Modern Pedohajytist Scholarship. 155 

it. Some theologians said this, and other theolo- 
gians said that . . . but parents brought their 
children, in happy ignorance of the teachings of 
these relentless logicians, being moved thereto by- 
natural human affection. It is the revelation of 
the will of God not in a book, nor in a doctrine, 
but in the heart, which maintains the baptism of 
infants in the life of the church.^' 

Here is a perfectly frank statement of the 
secret of the power of infant-baptism. Doubtless 
most pedobaptists believe the Bible affords 
warrant for the practice of infant-baptism, but 
this, belief is not the mainspring of their desire 
for the baptism of their children. This is human 
affection, misguided as to the religious status of 
their children and the place of baptism in the 
work of the kingdom of God. Between the anti- 
pedobaptists and Dean Hodges there is no con- 
troversy as to facts. Fundamentally that differ- 
ence is as to whether human sentiment, misin- 
formed and misguided as anti-pedobaptists be- 
lieve, shall override and nullify the clear teaching 
of Scripture on so important a matter as the reci- 
pient of baptism ; for that infant-baptism nullifies 
faith-baptism is indisputable. 

The great Cyclopedias usually summarize the 
views of current scholarship very accurately, and 
as works of reference they are of great influence. 

The treatment of baptism in Vol. H of the 
''Hncyclopsedia of Religion and Ethics,'^ edited 
b} James Hastings, is in accord with the state- 
ments and views expressed above. This is the 



156 Infant-Baptism, 

latest, largest and certainly one of the ablest 
works of reference on religious themes ever pub- 
lished in any language. Baptism is treated by 
Professor J. V. Bartlett, of Mansfield College, 
Oxford ; Professor Kirsopp Lake, of the Univer- 
sity of Leyden, and H. G. Wood, lecturer in the 
University of Cambridge. Professor Bartlett 
says that adult baptism **alone occupies attention 
in the New Testament;" but he maintains that 
the ideas of the religious solidarity of the family 
then current among both Jews and Gentiles would 
demand the baptism of infants. He thinks this 
makes infant-baptism very probable, if not certain. 
That is, he infers the baptism of infants, not from 
Scripture, which he admits to be silent regarding 
it, but from current religious ideas known to 
exist outside the Christian fold and supposed by 
him to be operative among Christians. 

Professor Lake says flatly, 'There is no in- 
dication of the baptism of children" in the New 
Testament, and he finds the presence of the prac- 
tice first in TertuUian, who opposes it on the 
ground that it is dangerous to both the child and 
the sponsors. 

Professor Wood is equally clear. He finds the 
custom first in TertuUian. He thinks it may have 
appeared earlier, but says : 'We are, as Harnack 
says, 'in complete obscurity as to the Church's 
adoption of the practice.' The clear third century 
references to child-baptism interpret it in the light 
of original sin, and if the adoption of the prac- 
tice is due to this interpretation, it is almost cer- 



Modern Pedohaptist Scholarship. 157 

tainly a late second century development. . . . 
References to original sin in Clement of Rome or 
other writers earlier than Cyprian cannot be held 
to imply a knowledge of the custom of infant- 
baptism. Moreover, the idea that infants needed 
to be baptized for the remission of sins is con- 
trary to all that is known of early Christian feel- 
ing toward childhood. . . . Even in the third 
century infant-baptism cannot be described as a 
Church custom. That the Church allowed parents 
to bring their infants to be baptized is obvious ; 
that some teachers and bishops may have encour- 
aged them to do so is probable, though there is no 
reason to suppose that Tertullian's position was 
peculiarly his own. But infant-baptism was not 
at this time enjoined or incorporated in the stand- 
ing orders of the church .... In any case, 
it is probable that the custom arose from the pres- 
sure of parents and not through the direct ad- 
vocacy of the Church. . . . The whole ritual 
was designed for adults. The confession of faith 
in particular points to this; and it must be ad- 
mitted that the institution of sponsors was a some- 
what clumsy device to adapt to infants a cere- 
mony which had clearly been ordered at a time 
when their baptism was not thought of. . . . 
The ritual is frankly unsuitable for infants, but 
it is retained because the tradition that instruc- 
tion and faith precede baptism is undeniably prim- 
itive. . . . Incidentally, the evidence of the 
ritual is against a very early date for the practice 
of infant-baptism." 



158 Infant-Baptism. 

Here is the frank admission by three of the 
leading pedobaptist scholars of the world, of the 
facts as they are seen by anti-pedobaptists. This 
is the position of the greatest religious cyclope- 
dia in English. 

Turning now to the greatest of the German 
cyclopedias, the ''Real Encyklopadie fiir Protest- 
antiche Thelogie und Kirche/' 3d edition, Vol. 19, 
page 403, we find this crisp, categorical statement : 
'The practice of infant-baptism in the apostolic 
and post-apostolic age cannot be proved. We hear 
indeed frequently of the baptism of entire house- 
^'holds, as in Acts 16: 15, 32!; 18: 8; i Cor. i : 16. 
I But the last passage taken with i. Cor. 7: 14 is 
\^not favorable to the supposition that infant-bap- 
tism was customary at that time. For then Paul 
could not have written 'else were your children 
unclean.' '' On page 408 it is said : "It is proven 
that this baptism was practiced from the time of 
Irenseus and Tertullian. However it had not been 
long practiced and certainly was not much in use 
at that time." This great work of reference thus 
takes a position in its statement of the facts con- 
cerning infant-baptism in harmony with the con- 
tention of anti-pedobaptist scholars. 

In the American translation and revision of 
this great work, known as "The New Schafif- 
Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge," 
the article on "Infant-baptism" is by Dr. Philip 
Schaff, revised by his son, Professor D. S. 
Schaflf. They maintain of course the legitimacy 



Modern Pedo'baptist Scholarship. 159 

of the practice of infant-baptism, but ground the 
custom on inference, frankly admitting that ''no 
positive command for baptizing infants is given 
by Christ or his apostles" and that ''no time can 
be assigned for the begining of the practice of in- 
fant-baptism/' As to the first testimony to the 
existence of the practice they say, "The three 
earliest witnesses to the prevalence of infant- 
baptism are Irenaeus, Origen and Tertullian,'' and 
they admit that the testimony of Irenseus is "not 
unequivocal/' This is the position of the great- , 
est of the American cyclopedias of religious 
knowledge. 

The greatest of all the general cyclopedias, 
"The Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition,'' 
in the article on baptism by Dr. F. C. Conybeare, 
takes the position of anti-pedobaptists as to the 
facts, without qualification or evasion. After stat- 
ing concerning early baptism that "the essential 
thing was that a man should come to baptism of 
his own free will," and tracing the history of the 
rise of infant-baptism, he concludes in these 
words, which will sufficiently indicate his views : 
"On such grounds was justified the transition of 
a baptism which began as a spontaneous act of 
self-consecration into an opus operatum. How 
long after this it was before infant-baptism be- 
came normal inside the Byzantine church we do 
not know exactly. . . . The change came more 
quickly in Latin than in Greek Christendom, and 
very slowly indeed in the Armenian and the 
Georgian churches." 



160 Infant-Baptism. 

Church historians are generally agreed that 
there is no conclusive evidence for the practice 
of infant-baptism before Irenseus and Tertullian. 
A few quotations from the ablest of the present- 
day historians of the world will make this evi- 
dent. 

A. C. McGiffert, professor of Church History 
in Union Theological Seminary, says in his ''His- 
tory of Christianity in the Apostolic Age," page 
543 : ''Whether infants were baptized in the 
apostolic age, we have no means of determining. 
Where the original idea of baptism as a baptism 
of repentance, or where Paul's profound concep- 
tion of it as a symbol of the death and resurrection 
of the believer with Christ prevailed, the practice 
would not be likely to arise. But where the rite 
was regarded as a mere sign of one's reception 
into the Christian circle, it would be possible for 
the custom to grow up under the influence of the 
ancient idea of the family as a unit in religion as 
in all other matters. Before the end of the second 
century, at any rate, the custom was common, 
but it did not become universal until a much later 
time.'' Professor McGiffert must know that in- 
fant-baptism was not "regarded as a mere sign 
of one's reception into the Christian circle" be- 
fore the Reformation. It arose, as has been 
shown, out of a belief in its sacramental regenera- 
tive power. Moreover, it is exceedingly doubtful 
if the "custom was common" before the end of 
the second century. It was hardly a common cus- 
tom when it first appears in Christian literature, 



Modern Pedohaptist Scholarship. 1Q1 

and did not become common before the fifth cen- 
tury. 

The late Principal Robert Rainy of New Col- 
lege, Edinburgh, was a staunch Presbyterian 
churchman, but in his ''Ancient CathoHc 
Church" he is constrained to admit all the facts 
as claimed by anti-pedobaptists. In his treatment 
of the period 98-180 A.D., he says, page 75 : 
''Baptism presupposed somie Christian instruction, 
and was preceded by fasting. It signified the for- 
giveness of past sins, and was the visible point 
of departure of the new life under Christian in- 
fluences and with the inspiration of Christian pur- 
poses and aims. Hence, it was the 'seal' which 
it concerned a man to keep inviolate.'' 

Infant-baptism is not mentioned by him in 
treating this first period of post-apostolic history. 
In dealing with the next period (180-313) he 
says, page 234 : "All through the present period, 
and a good while after, the conspicuous and pre- 
vailing type of baptism is baptism of adults. 
That was so, of course, at the outset, when the 
Church was busy gathering in her converts ; and 
it still continues to be so. Nevertheless, infant- 
baptism was recognized already in the second cen- 
tury." He then mentions Irenaeus and Tertul- 
lian as affording the first evidence of its ex- 
istence. 

Andre Lagarde, in his "Latin Church in the Mid- 
dle Ages," carrying the matter one chronological 
step further than Rainy, says (page 37) : "Until 

the sixth century, infants were baptized only 
11 



162 Infant-Baptism, 

when they were in danger of death. About this 
time the practice was introduced of administer- 
ing baptism even when they were not ill. . . . 
After the usage came the law. The latter made 
its appearance in England, where (691) an assem- 
bly presided over by King Ina ordered, under pen- 
alty of a fine, the baptism of infants within thirty 
days after their birth. From England the law 
passed into Prankish countries. In the assembly 
of Paderborn (785) Charlemagne commanded 
the Saxons, under penalty of a heavy fine, to 
have their infants baptized during their first year. 
. . . Then, as always happens, the law of the 
highest bid performed its work. In the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries various provincial 
councils decided that infants should be baptized 
during the first days following their birth.'' 

Adolph Harnack, of Berlin, is undoubtedly the 
most widely known church historian of the world. 
In his ''History of Dogma'' he necessarily deals 
at some length with infant-baptism. Of the post- 
apostolic era he says (Vol. I, page 20, note 2) : 
''There is no sure trace of infant-baptism in the 
epoch; personal faith is a necessary condition." 
Again, in Vol. II, page I42f, he says : "Com- 
plete obscurity prevails as to the Church's adop- 
tion of the practice of child-baptism, which, 
though it owes its origin to the idea of this cere- 
mony being indispensable to salvation, is never- 
theless a proof that the superstitious view of bap- 
tism had increased. In the time of Irenaeus 
(II, 22, 4), and Tertullian (de bapt. 18), child- 



Modern Pedohaptist Scholarship, 163 

baptism had already become very general and 
was founded on Matthew 19 : 14. We have no 
testimony regarding it from earlier times. . . . 
To all appearances the practice of immediately 
baptizing the children of Christian families was 
universally adopted in the Church in the course 
of the third century/' This last statement is de- 
cidedly too sweeping as seen from evidence pre- 
sented above. Harnack himself later modified 
this statement as seen in Vol. IV, page 284, where 
he says with much greater approach to accuracy, 
that infant-baptism ''was established in the fifth 
century as the general usage. Its complete adop- 
tion runs parallel with the death of heathenism.'' 
He might have added that in its essence it was 
largely an absorption from heathenism. 

H. M. Gwatkin, professor of Ecclesiastical 
History in Cambridge University, is one of the 
ablest living historians. He has dealt especially 
wnth early church history. In his ''Early Church 
History to 313/' Vol. I, page 250, he says of this 
practice : "We have good evidence that infant- . / 
baptism is no direct institution either of the Lord ^ 
himself or of his apostles. There is no trace of 
it in the New Testament. Every discussion of the 
subject presumes persons old enough to have faith 
and repentance, and no case of baptism is re- 
corded except of such persons, for the whole 
'households' mentioned would in that age mean 
dependents and slaves as naturally as they sug- 
gest children to the English reader. ... It ^ 
\s absurd to quote Mark 10: 14 ('of such is the 



^ 



164 Infant-Baptism. 

kingdom of God') or Acts 2: 39 ('the promise 
is to you and to your children') to prove that the 
practice existed." He thinks, however, that in- 
fant-baptism is shown by these passages to be in 
accord with the principles of Christ's ordinance, 
and declares that ''if St. Paul (i Cor. 7: 14) dis- 
approves the institution, he approves its principle." 

Such quotations as these could be multiplied 
indefinitely. One needs only to compare them 
with the position of historians a century ago to 
observe the greatness of the change which recent 
investigations have brought about in learned 
opinion. 

One of the most striking evidences of the 
changing convictions of pedobaptist scholars is 
seen in the treatment by commentators of those 
passages which were formerly interpreted in sup- 
port of infant-baptism. Most of the commenta- 
tors of the present day are simply silent with re- 
gard to infant-baptism when they come to con- 
sider these passages. Now and then they stop 
to point out the fact that the passage either has 
no bearing on the question of infant-baptism or 
militates against the existence of the practice in 
New Testament times. A few quotations will 
serve as examples to show the general trend of 
comment. 

Robertson and Plummer, on i Cor. 7 : 14, a pas- 
sage long used as one of the strongest in support 
of infant-baptism, remark that Paul "is not as- 
suming that a child of Christian parents would 
be baptized; that would spoil rather than help 



Modern Pedohaptist Scholarship, lg5 

his argument, for it would imply that the child 
was not 'holy' till it was baptized. The verse 
throws no light on the question of infant-bap- 
tism/' The ''Cambridge Bible'' does not men- 
tion infant-baptism in treating the verse. It re- 
marks on Acts i6: 15, ''We are not justified in 
concluding from these passages (on household . / 
baptism) that infants were baptized. 'House- 
hold' might mean slaves and freedwomen." It 
calls attention to the fact that the members of the 
jailer's "house" were "willing hearers." 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE OUTLOOK FOR FAITH-BAPTISAI. 



After the survey of the preceding pages it is 
natural to ask ourselves concerning the outlook 
for these two baptisms — infant-baptism and faith- 
baptism — for the future. 

It is, then, true that the majority of the nominal 
Christians of the world still for one reason or an- 
other practice infant-baptism. But it is also true 
that there has been a vast growth of anti-pedo- 
baptist sentiment since the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. A century and a quarter ago 
there were perhaps not more than one hundred 
thousand anti-pedobaptists in the world, and they 
were nearly confined to England and the United 
States ; now there are from eight to ten millions 
organized into churches which practice nothing 
but faith-baptism, and they speak most of the 
languages of the earth. Then they were unor- 
ganized, destitute of culture and unsupplied with 
schools, poor, despised and without influence ; to- 
day they are well organized, aggressive, well sup- 
plied with good schoolSj with equal opportunities 
before the law and society in most of the coun- 
tries of the earth. In some countries like Russia, 
they are still under suspicion and are sometimes 
persecuted ; nor have they outlived prejudice even 

(166) 



The Outlook for Faith-Baptism. 167 

in the most enlightened communities of England 
and America. The great pedobaptist churches 
enjoying the prestige of numbers, distinction, 
weahh and power, often look with disdain, if not 
contempt, upon the small inconspicuous bands of 
anti-pedobaptists, who cling to their peculiarities 
notwithstanding the isolation and opprobrium it 
entails. Their beliefs and practices have neces- 
sarily made them the aggressors in a continuous 
and extended struggle with the pedobaptist 
churches. They have earnestly opposed the union 
between Church and State and thus opposed the 
supposed interests of the two greatest and most 
powerful organizations of human society ; they 
have attacked the whole conception of sacramental 
salvation, thus throwing themselves into the op- 
position against a view which seems to be a hu- 
man instinct and certainly is the most widely dis- 
tributed conception of religion ; they have con- 
sistently contended for the religious freedom of 
the individual and religious democracy, a doc- 
trine which has been and still is widely regarded 
as most dangerous to the stability of society and 
the w^elfare of the individual; they have repu- 
diated church authority in every form and in- 
sisted on scripturalness as the form of faith 
and of practice, exciting thereby the charge of 
being narrow literalists ; they have fought infant- 
baptism as the chief seat and stronghold of the 
manifold corruptions from which Christianity has 
suffered. In a word, the circumstances have 
steadily forced the anti-pedobaptists into the posi- 
tion of an opposition party. 



168 Infant-Baptism, 

As seen by their opponents they have in 
some measure been a negative and destructive, 
rather than a positive constructive force, 
more bent on the destruction of the exist- 
ing order of things than on building up the 
kingdom of God. While this appearance v^as 
unavoidable amid the conditions which met the 
revival and grovi^th of the practice of faith-bap- 
tism, still it was very unfortunate. It prevented 
the pedobaptists from understanding and properly 
estimating the aims and efforts of the anti-pedo- 
baptists, and it sometimes exercised a baneful in- 
fluence on the anti-pedobaptists themselves. To 
be forever in the opposition, members of a de- 
spised minority, devoted primarily to destructive 
criticism of others, is very trying on character. 
It must be confessed with sorrow that the anti- 
pedobaptists have not always been able to escape 
the dangers of their position. They have not 
always illustrated in their own living those 
traits of character which Paul sets forth 
as the fruits of the Spirit, and have sometimes 
partially lost sight of that great constructive aim, 
the building of the kingdom of God, which con- 
stitutes the ultimate end of all Christian effort. 

But notwithstanding their own shortcomings 
and defects and the misunderstandings and preju- 
dices of their opponents and all the mighty forces 
of inertia, custom, ecclesiastical and state opposi- 
tion, the anti-pedobaptists have increased and in- 
creased rapidly in all the elements of strength, 
since the beginning of the nineteenth century. 



The Outlook for Faith-Baptism. 169 

They now have an assured position which, it 
seems unlikely, they will ever lose. Indeed, anti- 
pedobaptism has the best opportunity it has ever 
enjoyed since pedobaptism was introduced into 
the Christian church. Anti-pedobaptists are no 
longer feared as anarchists, dangerous to all social 
order ; the religious fruits of their views have been 
tested by time and are seen to be beneficent 
rather than otherwise; they have taken up the 
constructive attitude more and more as their 
strength increased and their position became more 
tolerable, until today they are (at least among 
EngHsh-speaking peoples) bearing a large share 
in all the world's great moral and religious tasks. 
The purely negative, critical attitude is passing 
from among them; they are coming out of their 
isolation into the central current of the world's 
life; unjust and unreasoning prejudice is passing 
away even where approval of their views is with- 
held. 

The most obvious and striking fact is the re- 
lative decline of infant-baptism and the rapid 
growth of faith-baptism during the last century 
and a quarter. Notwithstanding its long history, 
its entrenched position in the social life and the 
ecclesiastical traditions of all the so-called Chris- 
tian nations, notwithstanding the prestige and 
power of the great pedobaptist churches, notwith- 
standing all this, and more, infant-baptism has 
lost its grip on large elements of society and is 
declining. Hosts of people who in times past 
would have been brought into the church through 



170 1 7if ant-Baptism. 

infant-baptism now stand outside all the 
churches, while certain forms of Christianity like 
the Quakers, the Salvation Army and Christian 
Science have abandoned baptism altogether; the 
anti-pedobaptists are organized, active and influ- 
ential not only in opposing infant-baptism but in 
administering and propagating faith-baptism, 
while even in the pedobaptist churches themselves 
there is a large element which does not believe 
in and will not practice infant-baptism. To in- 
sist on it would drive them out of the church. 
This progressive decline is found among the 
English-speaking peoples chiefly, exactly where 
there is the largest measure of human freedom 
and personal initiative. This decline of infant- 
baptism has been paralleled by an equally rapid 
growth in the practice of faith-baptism as an 
organized movement in the form of churches. 
Those who practice faith-baptism only now num- 
ber millions. Naturally only their communicants 
are counted, but of these there are eight or ten 
millions. If the population which belongs to them 
should be included they number twenty to twenty- 
five millions. This means that something like 
one in every twenty-five of the nominal Christian 
population of the world is directly or indirectly 
supporting faith-baptism as against infant-bap- 
tism. Let it be remembered that nearly all of 
this has been gained in a century and a quarter 
against the mightiest institutions of human soci- 
ety and the greatness of the success can be appre- 
ciated. 



The Outlook for Faith-Baptism. X71 

Moreover, the forces which have contributed 
to this growth during this period are still opera- 
tive, and some of them at least are likely to be 
accelerated. The effects of the world w^ar will 
not be fully known for a century or two, but it 
is likely to contribute to the growth of democracy 
and personal freedom in the lands of Eastern 
Europe and Western Asia, and may bring on a 
great revival of religion. The Slavs of South- 
eastern Europe have been adopting faith-baptism 
in large numbers for years, and the establishment 
of real freedom in these regions would probably 
prepare the way for a tremendous outburst of 
Baptist growth. During the last half century 
there has been good grow^th of Baptist sentiment 
among the Teutons and Hungarians. This is 
likely to be accelerated. Every great upheaval 
of human society in modern times, which has 
forced men to consider fundamentals again has 
witnessed a revival of anti-pedobaptist sentiment. 
Examples of this effect are the Reformation, 
when the Anabaptists arose to such great power ; 
the period of the English Revolution, in which 
the English Baptists made the first deep impres- 
sion on English life ; the American colonial 
period, in which American Baptists began their 
work; the intellectual, religious and political up- 
heavals of the eighteenth century, culminating in 
America in the Revolution and the establishment 
of constitutional freedom, which was followed in 
England and America by the era of greatest pros- 
perity for anti-pedobaptists. If this principle 



172 Infant-Baptism. 

continues to operate, there ought to be a tremend- 
ous outburst of anti-pedobaptist sentiment on 
the continent of Europe at the conclusion of this 
great war. Surely all social and political institu- 
tions are being shaken to their foundations. Men 
on the battlefields and their sufifering friends at 
home are being thrown back upon the fundamen- 
tals of life and death. Ecclesiastical traditions 
are in the melting pot, men are seeking the spir- 
itual realities which will sustain them in the ter- 
rible hours of strife when they look death in the 
face. 

These and other considerations lead anti-pedo- 
baptists to cherish a hopeful expectation of 
progress for spiritual religion and faith-baptism. 
They believe the forces that have cooperated to 
produce the successes of the last century will con- 
tinue to operate with accelerated power. They 
confidently expect a further decline and possibly 
an ultimate disappearance of infant-baptism from 
the evangelical pedobaptist bodies. Their exist- 
ence and prosperity in no way rest upon the con- 
tinuance of the practice of infant-baptism. It is 
probable, indeed it is almost certain, that their 
growth would be accelerated by the abandonment 
of this practice which so many of their members 
neglect or disapprove. 

On the other hand, infant-baptism is essential 
to the existence of the two great Catholic 
churches. Its abolition would bring their dissolu- 
tion. It is certain, therefore, that infant-baptism 
will continue as long as they exist. Should they 



The Outlook for Faith- Baptism, I73 

ever become evangelical, which is wholly improb- 
able, it might then be eliminated from them. The 
continuance and prosperity of evangelical reli- 
gion is bound up with faith-baptism. Among the 
unevangelical pedobaptists, infant-baptism is al- 
most as necessary and is not likely to be aban- 
doned. 

Advocates of faith-baptism need not be san- 
guine of a speedy triumph. Ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion is powerful and belief in the magical effects 
of baptism is mighty. It required centuries for 
infant-baptism to establish itself in the Christian 
church ; it will probably require longer to elimi- 
nate it. Direct attack upon the custom probably 
accomplishes little; direct advocacy of faith-bap- 
tism as the duty of every regenerated man is a 
powerful scriptural appeal. Anti-pedobaptists 
will continue to do both, but they will not become 
impatient and censorious, believing that God is 
working in a large way to restore throughout the 
earth the spiritual salvation and the faith-baptism 
of the New Testament. 

It is a strange thing that "one baptism,'' which 
Paul regarded as a bond of Christian union along 
with ''one Lord, one faith . . . one God and 
Father of all'' (Eph. 4: 5), should be one of 
the main causes of a divided Christendom today. 
It is safe to say that divergence in the views and 
practice of baptism divide Christian men and 
churches more hopelessly and fundamentally than 
any other expression of religion. If all Christen- 
dom could once more be united on scriptural bap- 



174 Infant 'Baptism. 

tism, all other serious dififerences would disappear, 
the spirituality and evangelical character of Chris- 
tianity would be safe and a new era of harmoni- 
ous action among the Christian forces of the world 
would be at hand. Infant-baptism more than 
anything else stands as the chief barrier to Chris- 
tian union. It is a second baptism, an alien de- 
ment, introduced into Christianity from the out- 
side, which not only separates its advocates from 
the rest of the Christian world, but also divides 
them among themselves. - It deprives evangelical 
pedobaptists of the consciousness of scriptural 
support, constantly embarrasses them in its de- 
fense, weakens the allegiance of many of their 
members, aligns them with the Catholic churches, 
introduces an element of artificiality and unreality 
into religion, and banishes in large measure faith- 
baptism which was the ''one baptism'' commanded 
by our Lord, both their Lord and ours. There 
is no escaping these facts. Is it too much to hope 
that evangelical pedobaptists will sometime return 
to scriptural baptism? Surely the Lord must 
have known what was best for his children and 
the work of the kingdom in the matter of the bap- 
tism he approved and himself received. If this 
be so, why will those who love the Lord persist 
in substituting something else for the baptism he 
commanded ? And by the testimony of their own 
best scholars they are substituting. Moreover, they 
are substituting something which is not neutral 
or negative, but which in its total effects has been 
and still is one of the most baneful influences in 



The Outlook for Faith-Baptism. I75 

Christian history. The abandonment of infant- 
baptism would greatly strengthen all the evan- 
gelical pedobaptist churches and would destroy 
those that are not evangelical, and would be a 
tremendous step towards the unification of the 
evangelical forces of Christendom. The advo- 
cates of faith-baptism are, as they believe, con- 
tending for the essence of Christianity, the essen- 
tial Protestant principle, which is necessary to the 
life of all evangelical bodies. They believe that 
infant-baptism is everywhere unscriptural, that it 
is, as held by most of its advocates, anti-scriptural, 
that it has been historically and in practice most 
hurtful. They know it nullifies, for all who have 
received it, the command of Christ that every 
believer should be baptized. They pray the Fa- 
ther to hasten the day when there shall be ''one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Fa- 
ther of all, who is over all, and through all, and 
in all." 



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